We Will Do it Our Own Ways :

Transcription

1 We Will Do it Our Own Ways : A Perspective of Southern Sudanese Refugees Resettlement Experiences in Australian Society James Wani-Kana Lino Lejukole Thesis submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy Discipline of Anthropology The University of Adelaide South Australia June 2008

2 DECLARATION This work does not contain material that has been accepted for award of any other degree or diploma at any university or tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except when due reference is made in the text of this thesis. I give consent for this copy of my thesis, when deposited in the University of Adelaide library, being available for loan and photocopying, subject to the provision of the copyright Act Signed..Date ii

3 CONTENTS DECLARATION....II LIST OF FIGURES....VII ABSTRACT VIII ACKNOWLEDGMENT...XI DEDICATION.....XV CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION: Resettlement of Migrants and Refugees in Australia: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective Early Migrants Locating the Thesis Theoretical Perspective Integration CHAPTER TWO: FIELD SITES AND FIELDWORK Introduction Methodology In-depth Structured and Unstructured Interviews Participant Observations The Field Sites The Sudanese Community Association of South Australia Branch 48 Migrant Resource Centre of South Australia (MRCSA).50 Australian Refugee Association (ARA)...51 Field Activities iii

4 Home Visitations, Interviews and Participant Observation Social Events Locating the Informants and Gaining Access and Trust Selecting Informants Reflections on my Position as an Insider Researcher Challenges Encountered in the Field How the Data Were Analysed CHAPTER THREE: THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHERN SUDAN: HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND THE EXPERIENCES OF WAR AND DISPLACEMENT. 70 Introduction Brief Ethnographic Description of the Southern Sudanese The Nilotics The Nilo-Hamites 80 The Sudanic The Reasons Which Forced Refugees to Leave Their Country of Origin...81 Root Causes of the Two Civil Wars in Southern Sudan The Plight and Flight of the Southern Sudanese: A Brief Historical and Contemporary Perspective Experiences of Life in Displacement Relations Between Southern Sudanese and Host Communities in Refuge/Exile.105 CHAPTER FOUR: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ACCOUNT OF THE RESETTLEMENT EXPERIENCES OF SOUTHERN SUDANESE REFUGEES RESETTLED IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA Introduction Integration as Defined in the Literature Southern Sudanese Perceptions of Settlement Support Services Informants Reluctance to Attend Settlement Activities Organised by Support Organisations.122 Southern Sudanese Perspectives of the Resettlement and Integration iv

5 Education and Educational Achievements as Essential Factors in Resettlement and Integration processes Resettlement Challenges Language Housing and Accommodation Employment as a Key Component of Resettlement and Integration Success CHAPTER FIVE: STRENGTHENING THE TIES THAT BIND: SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND NETWORKING WITHIN AND OUTSIDE THE SOUTHERN SUDANESE COMMUNITIES AND THE EFFECTS ON RESETTLEMENT PROCESSES Introduction Social Networks and Relationships Making and Maintaining Social Relationships and Networks with Australians The Church s Role as a Provider and a Connector of the Southern Sudanese to Mainstream Australia Society Relationships with Neighbours..179 Social Relations and Networking Among Southern Sudanese Rotating Informal Credit: A Women s Initiative Residential Proximity as a Factor Influencing Choice of a Residence and Enhancing Resettlement Re-thinking Integration our Way: the Southern Sudanese Views of Successful Resettlement and Integration.190 CHAPTER SIX: LIVING BETWEEN HERE AND THERE : NEGOTIATING HOME, PLACE AND IDENTITY IN RESETTLEMENT Introduction Negotiating the Meaning of Home and Place in Resettlement Negotiating Identity in Resettlement Transnational-ness and Communication as a Means of Maintaining Collective Identity in Diaspora. 219 The Idea of Return as an Enduring Anchorage to Homeland 229 v

6 CHAPTER SEVEN: WE WILL DO IT OUR OWN WAYS : THE IMPACT OF RESETTLEMENT ON GENDER ROLES, FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS AND TRADITIONAL PRACTICES Introduction The Impact of Resettlement on Gendered Roles in Southern Sudanese Families.248 Husband-Wife and Parent-Child Relationships, Intergenerational Conflicts and Implications of the Resettlement Processes The Loss of the Role of a Provider and the Effects on Decision-Making and Relationships in the Family Intergenerational Conflicts and the Impact on Family Relationships and Resettlement Processes 263 Marriage and Bride-Wealth: is it Selling our Daughters, Buying our Wives or is it to Seal the Relationship Between two families? CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION Recommendations REFERENCES vi

7 LIST OF FIGURES Figure1: Traditional welcoming party/celebration for newly arrived members of community from refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda...47 Figure 2: The Azande community and friends celebrating Christmas in a traditional way in Adelaide, South Australia 57 Figure 3: Map of metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia..59 Figure 4: Map of the republic of Sudan showing the area comprising the Southern Sudan...74 Figure 5: The map of Southern Sudan showing locations of some tribal (Ethnic) groups..75 Figure 6: The Sudd...93 Figure7: Sudanese Refugee Protestors in Cairo, Egypt Figure 8: Asena (an informant) and her friend telling their refugee stories and giving words of thanks to a Uniting Church at North Adelaide for the continuous support they receive from the church since arrival.175 Figure 9: Southern Sudanese members of the Uniting Church in North Adelaide with Australian members of the church in prayer and worship with drums, singing and dancing Figure 10: Moving house: An Australian member of Adelaide West Uniting Church drove in his truck to help move Mario s (an informant) family to a new residence after being in conflict with landlord and threatened with eviction. He was joined by friends from his ethnic group friends Figure 11: An elder being consulted by a member of his community regarding information about jobs Figure 12: A woman carrying a bundle of sugar cane to the market on her head in Southern Sudan Figure 13: Young girls in Southern Sudan carrying water home from stream (water point)..231 vii

8 ABSTRACT The main purpose of my thesis is to understand, from the perspectives of Southern Sudanese themselves, their resettlement experiences in Australia, to provide knowledge about how their experiences of exile reshape their thinking of home, place, identity, gender roles, and traditional practices, to explore the extent of their resettlement and integration into Australian society, and to inform policy on the resettlement of refugees and the settlement services offered to them. The thesis explores the range of interactions and relationships among Southern Sudanese and between them and their Australian hosts. It demonstrates how these interactions and relationships shaped and reshaped the Southern Sudanese sense of identity and belonging in resettlement in Australia. The thesis also provides insights into the relationships between the war that forced them out of their homeland, their flight, life in refugee camp or in exile, and how these affected their ability to resettle. To understand these, I have listened to how they described their lives before and during the war, while seeking refuge, and of their present and future life in Australia. From this I will show how they reproduce and maintain some aspects of their culture within the context of the Australian society, as well as how they are adapting to some aspects of life in that society. In this thesis I also explore the concepts of place, home and identity. In order to understand these concepts and how fluid they are in the current transnational era, I follow Thomas Faist s (2000) thinking about the causes, nature and the extent of movement of international migrants from poorer to richer countries (also Cohen 1997; Kaplan 1995; Appadurai 1995). Faist in particular examines the process of adaptation of newcomers to host countries and the reasons why many migrants continue to keep ties viii

9 to their home or place of origin. These ties, according to Faist, link transnational social spaces which range from border-crossing families and individuals to refugee diaspora. In this, I argue that resettlement involves complex interactions between newly arrived Southern Sudanese and members of Australian society. These complex interactions include firstly an array of social interactions occurring between Southern Sudanese and the staff of support organisations delivering settlement services to them. I show how the Southern Sudanese perceived the services they receive vis-à-vis the staff s perceptions of Southern Sudanese as recipients of their services. Secondly they include various kinds of social interactions, relationships and networks among the Southern Sudanese and between them and members of Australian society through making friendships, home visitations, joining social and cultural clubs, and becoming involved in professional associations and churches which are predominantly Australian. I show how these social relations and networking are being enacted and maintained and/or fall apart over time. I ascertain whether these relationships have enhanced their resettlement or not. Thirdly, the thesis shows the impact of a shift in gendered roles and intergenerational conflicts between parents and children on family relationships and how these in turn affect their actual settlement. This thesis is based on these themes and on the analysis drawn from detailed qualitative ethnographic research which I conducted over a period of fourteen months between January 2006 and March 2007 and from the literature. In keeping with the traditions of ethnographic fieldwork practices, I carried out structured and unstructured in-depth interviews and Participant Observation of informants during the fieldwork. The subjects of this thesis are the Southern Sudanese refugees who resettled in South Australia and some staff of organisations which delivered settlement services to them. The fundamental questions which these ethnographic explorations attempt to answer are ix

10 how do the Southern Sudanese experience resettlement in Australian, interact with members of their host society, construct their identities in relation to their notions of home and place, and negotiate shifting gender roles and relationships in the family. I show how their previous life experiences in Southern Sudan, their plight, their flight from war, their life in refugee camps and/or in refugee settings in other countries, their personal socio-economic and historical backgrounds, have affected their resettlement in Australia. I also explore their current and ongoing relations with their homeland and other Southern Sudanese diaspora and show how this perpetuates their identity as Southern Sudanese. I argue that success or failure in resettlement hinges mostly on the Southern Sudanese ability or inability to understand and speak the English language, their access to employment and stable housing, relationships with Australians, and the quality and quantity of settlement services which they access and receive. I assert that the interplay between/among these factors have combined to influence significantly the settlement processes and the extent of integration of Southern Sudanese into Australian society. Furthermore, I assert that these factors are inseparable and need to be examined and explained in relation to one another as they tend to be interwoven into the daily life experiences of Southern Sudanese. x

11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to all my informants, the Southern Sudanese refugees resettled in South Australia for their willingness to share with me their experiences of life of forced displacement from their homeland, of refugee camps or exile in other countries and the experiences of resettlement in Australia. I gratefully appreciate their spirit of kindness, warmth and generosity which they have accorded to me during my fieldwork and the time I spent with them. They have sacrificed their valuable time to talk and narrate their experiences to me, without which this thesis would have not been possible to accomplish. I have to admit that I lack better words to convey the depth of my appreciation, admiration and gratitude to them all for their sincere support to me. I also have appreciation to Eugenia Tsoulis the Executive Director of the Migrant Resource Centre of South Australia (MRCSA) and Christine Loveday, the Assistant Director of Australia Refugee Association (ARA) who so kindly granted me permission to enter into their settlement support organisations to volunteer and carry out part of my fieldwork in their organisations. I am also indebted to their staff who with good humour agreed to participate in my research. Their support provided me with the most invaluable learning experience in delivering support services to refugees and migrants. It almost seems impossible to me to avoid describing the doctoral degree journey I have made. Being a refugee from Southern Sudanese myself who has suffered so much from and has experienced decades of war, has been forcefully displaced several times, has lived in exile, and finally has resettled in Australia without resources (capital, social, financial etcetera), to be a student in one of the prestigious Universities in Australia and achieving this degree has been one of the daunting experiences of my life. I would like to thank the University of Adelaide Graduate Centre for granting me the scholarship xi

12 without which, as a refugee, I would not have been able to study and complete this degree. Being a refugee who has been deprived by war and related conditions of access to opportunities for enhancing one s life, my candidature has been throughout layered with personal, practical, academic and technological challenges as well as financial challenges at the conclusion of my candidature. However despite these challenges, I have arrived at the end of this academic journey. Thus I can gladly look back with pride and call myself a persistent good fighter. But like any other successful fight, it needs a reliable or unwavering training and trainers and in this case, stewardship and supervision. I am fortunate to be connected to Dr. Arthur Saniotis, former lecturer in the Discipline of Anthropology at the University of Adelaide by Sharon Lewis the Discipline of Anthropology s administrator. Sharon s single click of a mouse to distribute my resume to the teaching staff resulted in my getting to know Dr. Arthur who encouraged me to enroll in a PhD program in the Discipline and informed me about the availability of postgraduate scholarships at the University. He willingly showed me where the University of Adelaide Graduate Centre, which administers the scholarships, was located from where I later collected a scholarship application that resulted in my admission to the program. Dr Arthur then introduced me to Dr. Andrew Skuse, a senior lecturer in the Discipline who became my principal supervisor. Hence, as the saying goes, big things grow from little things. Sharon s simple click of her mouse, thus sending out my resume, has brought me this far and for this I am indebted to her and Dr. Arthur. As I have stated earlier, a successful fight needs reliable and unwavering training, stewardship and supervision. Hence, my greatest appreciation goes to my supervisors: Dr. Andrew Skuse and Dr. James Talyor. They have been academically very helpful, supportive, encouraging and accommodating. They guided me throughout all the stages xii

13 of this work. Their comments, recommendations, arguments, critiques, encouragement, as well as putting up with my English language (grammar) inadequacies and anxieties, have been very significant in shaping this thesis and for accomplishing it. Thus, without them, this thesis would have not been in the form it is now. They have been my pillars of support and have constantly helped me to overcome the myriad of academic hurdles I encountered, always finding the time to read and advise me on what was seen to be endless drafts. They have offered me invariably critical ears to listen to me during my several meetings with them and in reading the drafts of my thesis chapters and of the final thesis. It is this enthusiasm and unflinching guidance and academic support that have enabled me to reach the end of this challenging journey of my life; for that I express my heartfelt thanks to each of my supervisors. Thanks to Dr. Michael Wilmore, Dr. Michael Roberts and Dr. Alison Dundon for their encouragement. They have always dared to find out how I was going with my thesis and indicated their willingness to give academic advice in case I needed it. My gratitude also goes to Dr. Vic Beasley (retired) for the time and effort he has taken in proofreading/editing the text, which has been of immense help in shaping this thesis. My thanks also go to my postgraduate colleagues and especially to Sophia Corfield whose support has been a source of strength/energy to me throughout this journey. I am also thankful to my former colleague (at Flinders University) and a dear friend Jay Marlowe for his continuous encouragement and for proof reading the first draft of Chapter Seven. There are many other individuals who I need to thank for being there and helping me in one way or another throughout this long and challenging journey. Particularly, I want to thank Simon Awour and his family for their support and encouragement. I also want to xiii

14 thank Dickson Duku Rufas and Alex Woja Tere for often fixing my car during and after my fieldwork wherever and whenever it broke down. I am also grateful to David Kranz and Vicki Sanders for offering me their car (used) which I used during my entire fieldwork. I am also grateful Emmanuel Toimot Yengi who often checks my personal computers (desktop and laptop) once they experience problems and fixes it for me without any charges during my fieldwork and the writing stage. I would also like to acknowledge support from Samuel Kei Jame who lent me his laptop to use during my final writing stage because my laptop broke down and was no longer fixable. Above all, my deepest thanks go to my dear wife and best friend Ms Hellen Poni Anduga and to my beloved daughter Manuela Pino Wani-kana Lino for their understanding, patience and for putting up with my thesis obsession throughout my candidature when I was not always physically present with them because I was elsewhere either in my university postgraduate office, in the library, or in our family study room spending time working on my thesis. I sincerely thank them for giving me hugs when I really needed them. Thank you my dear Hellen for encouraging me always and for believing that I would get there in the end, and for doing virtually every thing for me at home during my entire study period. Without your good sense of homour, your entrenched faith in what I could do, and your constant support, this challenging journey would have been impossible to complete. You and Manuela have been a source of constant inspiration throughout my candidature. xiv

15 DEDICATION I wish to dedicate this work to my late grandmother Miriama Poni commonly known by the name Ajwőkő. Through her care, she had made me what I am today. She cared for me when my mother died when I was barely one and half years old. May you never be forgotten my grand Mom! I also dedicate this work to my wife Hellen Poni Anduga and my daughter Manuela Poni Wani-Kana. xv

16 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Due to the complex nature of the experiences of refugees and of forced migration, resettlement and integration, I take an interdisciplinary focus in this thesis. The choice of this interdisciplinary approach has been dictated by the need to elucidate and provide a comprehensive understanding of those themes which I have cited in the thesis summary. This approach adequately captures the fluid and diverse nature of the experiences inherent in the refugees life during war, and period/s of displacement, encampment/refuge and resettlement in a new environment. In this chapter I offer an overview of the thesis structure and a summary of the contents for discussion in each chapter. I also show the potential contribution of my thesis to the knowledge of both the Discipline of Anthropology in the areas of refugee studies and settlement theory, and to the practice of policy makers working in the areas of refugees resettlement programs. This thesis comprises eight chapters: each explores specific themes which I have highlighted earlier. In this chapter (Chapter One) I provide a brief historical account of immigration to Australia and theoretical perspectives that inform the discussions of the themes in each chapter which situate this thesis within the subfield of refugee and forced migration and resettlement studies in anthropology. I will show the contribution of the thesis to the body of knowledge within anthropology by offering elaborate empirical understanding of the Southern Sudanese experiences of life of resettlement in Australia and how they rework and re-establish meanings related to their new life, identity, place, home, shift in gender role, traditional practices, and family relationships in their new environment. 1

17 In Chapter Two I will provide a description of the field sites where I carried out my fieldwork and show how I conducted my fieldwork among my informants, the Southern Sudanese. I describe how I selected the field site and informants, conducted unstructured and structured in-depth interviews, and participant observations. These were done during home visits, while I assisted informants to search for and locate rental property (housing), assisted them with shopping, completed various forms, acted as an interpreter for them, as well as participating in other social events such as receptions for new arrivals from refugee camps in Africa, religious festivals, birthday celebrations and marriage negations. During my fieldwork I did voluntary work with the Migrant Resource Centre of South Australia (MRCSA) and the Australian Refugee Association (ARA) in order to make connections with those Southern Sudanese who accessed the services of these support organisations. During that time, I combined my volunteer role with my role as researcher. This enabled me to connect with staff of those support organizations in order to observe when and how they interact with and service their Southern Sudanese clients, and to interview them regarding the services they deliver to them. In Chapter Two, I also highlight the reasons why I chose to volunteer with MRCSA and ARA and conducted part of my fieldwork in those settlement support organizations (service providers). In Chapter Three I offer a brief description of the people who collectively called themselves Southern Sudanese or Junubin (an Arabic word for Southern Sudanese people). I complemented my fieldwork data by consulting ethnographies produced about some of the ethnic or tribal groups living in Southern Sudan whose members are currently resettled in Australia under Australian humanitarian and refugees resettlement programs. This chapter also provides a brief description of the historical background of the Southern Sudanese, especially the recent decades of civil war that 2

18 plagued Southern Sudan between 1955 and 1972 and from 1983 to 2005 which led to massive social displacement of Southern Sudanese and eventual resettlement in western countries, including Australia. The chapter discusses how the war and related conditions had adversely affected the life of the Southern Sudanese, and hindered access to education, economic opportunities, health, and other services. It examines their experiences in refugee camps and in other urban cities in exile. I argue that the adverse effects of the war and related conditions which the Southern Sudanese endured have impeded and adversely influenced their resettlement capabilities in Australia. I assert that any attempt to ignore their historical background, which is shrouded by wars and their refugee experiences, will obscure the understanding of why some Southern Sudanese have more difficulties than others in resettling into Australian society. Furthermore, war and displacement has severely destroyed the institutional structures (social family, economic, political, administrative, civil, educational, legal and so forth) in Southern Sudan; as a result, moving from Southern Sudan to refugee camps with barely non existing structures and then resettling in Australia - a society with highly developed and sophisticated institutional structures - presented daunting life experiences for the majority of my informants. Chapter Four offers from the perspective of the Southern Sudanese - my informants - an ethnographic account of their complex resettlement experiences and of the challenges that they encountered in resettling into Australian society. In order to understand these, I draw on Richardson et al. (2004), Knudsen (1991), Malkki (1995a & 1995b), Kunz (1981 & 1973) and other studies on refugee resettlement (migration) experiences to show how the difficulties of some Southern Sudanese in resettling in Australian society are linked to their experiences of war and life in refugee camps or in countries of transition. Although Kunz s (1973 & 1981) work could be regarded as an old study, his 3

19 kinetic theoretical model of the flight of refugees in particular is still regarded as relevant in refugee studies when it is used to complement contemporary scholarship, including those I have cited. This is because it gives insight into the experiences of refugees from the time of plight, flight and camp life to the time of resettlement. Kunz s theoretical model depicts refugees associative patterns in practical ways and suggests that there is an inclination among members of the host society to see all refugees from a given country/region as a homogenous group, which is not the case. Kunz (1981) claims that within any one refugee group there are subdivisions of waves, or what he has termed refugee vintages, and that refugees flee a country at dissimilar points in time, are escaping from different pressures and have different backgrounds. This depicts the situations of the Southern Sudanese refugees who resettled in Australia which significantly influence their resettlement and integration capabilities. Thus, Kunz s model, in addition to others, will considerably enhance our understanding of the complex resettlement experiences of Southern Sudanese in Australia. This chapter discusses what my informants consider as participation in the activities of Australian society and their perceptions of the quantity and quality of the resettlement services which they received. It relies, among other studies, on Putnam s (1996) concept of bridging social capital to inform my own approach to this. The chapter considers their pre-resettlement expectations of life in Australia, how those expectations transpire in their real life of resettlement in Australia, and how these have led to re-orientation and reconstruction of their way of life in their new society. It discusses potential barriers to resettlement, particularly in areas such as employment, housing and English language, and shows how these have enhanced the successful resettlement of some, but have also been an impediment to some Southern Sudanese in Australia. The chapter also discusses what they consider as services that could best meet their resettlement 4

20 needs. In this thesis, I use resettlement needs to refer to the desires and wants of my informants for a range of things that are essential for their current and future lives in Australia. These needs include education, housing, household goods, transport, jobs, healthcare, social and financial support and so forth. I argue in this chapter that as the Southern Sudanese who resettled in Australia came from distinctively different sociocultural, economic and political environments from that of Australia, their success in resettlement and integration occurs gradually over time as they need to understand the English language, and the systems, structures, and procedures of their new society such as access to employment, housing and other services. I also stress that the period of time to achieve successful resettlement and integration depends on an individual s abilities to overcome resettlement challenges. In Chapter Five I discuss social relationships and networking among Southern Sudanese themselves and with their Australian hosts. The chapter shows how social relationships and networks are negotiated, reworked, maintained or fall apart overtime. It explores whether or not the Southern Sudanese engage as a separate group in activities which they organise, whether they invite Australian friends (and vice versa), and whether they both exchange home visits. Additionally it then shows how such social relationships and networking among the Southern Sudanese themselves, and between them and Australian friends, significantly enhance their resettlement processes. This chapter also demonstrates the central role of the church in supporting Southern Sudanese in meeting their religious and other essential resettlement needs, and its role in connecting Southern Sudanese church goers with Australians in the church. In this chapter I argue that host governments and resettled refugees have divergent views of what constitutes successful resettlement and integration for newcomers. Host governments principally measure success or failure in resettlement and integration of 5

21 refugees and migrants by their abilities to speak the host language, find jobs, become economically independent, and by the ease of their access to and use of mainstream services. Central to these is the assumption that once refugees do not depend on social welfare payments, they have successfully resettled and integrated into their new society (Richardson et al. 2004). Conversely, I claim that this model of measurement and this assumption tend to ignore the social and cultural dimensions of refugees lives such as social relationships, interactions, friendships, networks, and other forms of support among the resettling refugees which are pivotal in the resettlement and integration success of any newcomer. Thus I assert that the aggregate sum of social relationships, including networks among Southern Sudanese themselves and with Australians, as well as the support they received and the connective role of the church and other support organisations, do significantly determine the success or failure of the Southern Sudanese attempts to resettle and integrate into Australian society. This is because those social and cultural factors have the propensity to create a strong sense of being accepted into, and of belonging to, Australian society (Barnes 2001; Stevens 1997) as much as interpersonal contacts and friendships can result in trust, and social links established can make them feel welcomed. I therefore conclude that success in resettlement and in integration into Australian society, which is an unfamiliar socio-cultural and economic environment for Southern Sudanese, is not an easy path to walk; it requires a lot of effort and resources from the Sudanese as well as from their host society in order to overcome the hurdles on this path. The chapter also shows how success in resettlement and integration are affected by individual abilities and attributes such as rural/urban origin, level of education, cultural, ethnic background and so forth. Chapter Six shows how the Southern Sudanese experience life in Australia, and how they negotiate and construct the meaning of home, place and identity in the context of 6

22 their life of resettlement in Australia after being displaced from their homeland. It also shows whether they call Australia a home or a place to live. To fully understand this, the chapter focuses on whether becoming an Australian citizen, acquiring property (house/land, permanent employment etc), and mastering the English language amount to a claim to full membership of the Australian society and identification with it. It also shows my informants views of who they define as Australians. In this chapter I suggest that the Southern Sudanese concepts of home, place and identity define who they are and these significantly influence their resettlement and integration into the Australian society (also see Salih, 2002). The chapter reiterates that the war in Sudan had led to subsequent resettlement of thousands of Southern Sudanese refugees in Australia, Finland, USA, Canada, New Zealand, and in other countries worldwide. This has created transnational communities of Southern Sudanese. Thus, because of their transnationalisation and diasporic experiences, the chapter demonstrates how they connect and relate to one another both in diaspora and with those at home. It shows how living way from home perpetuates their collective identity as Southern Sudanese or Junubin, which is significant because it impacts on their meaning of home, place, sense of belonging and how other identities are developed in the context of diaspora and transnational networks. It is agued that space is a social product in which social relationships are constructed and negotiated as well as contested and made meaningful. This chapter also highlights how the Southern Sudanese experience spatialisation, as well as how they socially and culturally read and interpret those experiences to harmonise and reshape, or maintain, their definition of selves and of others. Among my informants the shifting concepts of home, place and identity are formed from a range of interwoven cultural, social, political, historical, and psychological constructions derived from how they as individuals or groups experienced them. This in 7

23 turn influences their notions and meanings of place, home and identity in specific spaces or locations in which they have lived. In this I show how they acquire meaning and perpetuate it through multifaceted processes of re-construction, remembering and recounting of the past lived places and experiences as well as their imaginings of future. Chapter Seven shows the impact of resettlement on traditional gender roles and practices in the domestic sphere. It focuses on husband-wife and parent-child relationships in families. It shows how traditional practices, and especially performances of domestic gendered roles, are importantly linked to the notions of identity, home and place among my informants. Resettlement demands a radical shift in gender roles and renegotiation of relationships in the family, which in turn leads to new meanings of identity between men and women. In this chapter I also show how men, women and children experience and interpret both the shift and change in their life of resettlement. The chapter demonstrates how resettlement in a new and unfamiliar society influences the day-to-day lives of the Southern Sudanese within and outside the family. It particularly examines husband-wife and parent-child relationships and shows how they are renegotiated and enacted in relation to gendered role participation and also how these and intergenerational conflict in totality affected the resettlement of my informants. The chapter also considers different attitudes between parents and children regarding adherence to cultural practices and shows that while parents have a strong desire for their children to maintain and fully practice their culture and traditions, children on the other hand want to try out some aspects of life in their new society such as male-female relationships including cohabitation before marriage. Although resettlement is regarded by McSpadden and Moussa, (1993: 224) as an end point to the refugees predicament, I argue conversely that in fact it is the beginning of a long period of new predicaments, 8

24 including renegotiation of identity, roles and relationships, because perceptions and values in resettlement societies regarding these aspects of life (culture and traditions) are not comparable with those of the newcomers. Chapter Eight is the conclusion. It highlights the main themes and arguments of the thesis and offers recommendations to policy makers and practitioners in the area of refugees settlement and services delivery. Resettlement of Migrants and Refugees in Australia: A Historical and Contemporary Context At this stage I would like to offer a brief historical perspective of immigration and resettlement of refugees and migrants in Australia. Australia is currently one of the principle resettlement countries for refugees and migrants; according to DIMIA (2004), over 620,000 refugees and displaced people have resettled in Australia from everchanging source countries over the last 50 years. The literature on migration to Australia indicates that from 1947 Australia began to move away from being a country largely peopled by migrants of British and Irish ancestries to one with diverse populations from other European and Asian countries in addition to its original inhabitants-the Aborigines. The post-war refugees between 1947 and 1953 brought to Australia refugees from Eastern and Central Europe who had escaped communist and fascist rule (Kunz, 1971) and in 1956 and 1968 Australia resettled a wave of refugees from Hungary and Czechoslovakia respectively. This wave of refugees was followed by a wave of economic migrants between the 1950s and the 1970s, and in the late 1970s and 1980s Australia resettled a large number of refugees from South East Asia, especially refugees from Indo-China (Vietnam, Kampuchea and Laos) as a result of the Indo- Chinese war, and refugees from Latin America as a result of civil strikes and political and military upheaval in Latin America. The literature indicates that in the early 1990s Australia also resettled refugees from Vietnam and El Salvador, while it resettled 9

25 refugees from former Yugoslavia two years later. Australia s most recent wave of refugees is from Africa (including the Sudanese) and the Middle East as a result of wars and the political and social upheavals plaguing the Middle East and Africa. Refugees from some Asian and European countries also continue to be resettled in Australia. It has been claimed that the resettlement in Australia of Sudanese and other African people came about in the context of a changing Australian immigration policy which placed a greater focus on global immigration. Early Migrants Historically, the first migrants to Australia were British and Irish as a result of the British Empire s resettlement scheme and during the period of the gold rushes. Three waves of migrants and refugees followed the British and the Irish. The literature on migration to Australia shows that refugees and migrants from European countries integrated well into the Australian society because of their cultural similarities, and their shared social, political, and economic orientations and values with white Australians from Britain and Ireland. The migrants who followed those early settlers included Greeks, Italians, Lebanese and others. The first Greeks arrived involuntarily as refugees, but others came to Australian in search of fortune following the discovery of gold in Victoria and New South Wales between 1851 and Others resettled in Australia following the Greek defeat and expulsion from Asia Minor (Tamis 1994: 13). It is worth noting that after those fortune seekers had amassed their fortunes, some decided to return home; but others stayed in Australia. According to Tamis, the Australian view of their society as Anglophone White and culturally British significantly influenced Australia s immigration programs, policies and the negative attitudes of a good proportion of white Australian citizens towards 10

26 other migrants and refugee groups. Tamis supports this by citing the legislation against the migration of non-europeans to Australia and the immigration policy that favoured northern Europeans over southern Europeans and Chinese over Italians. He particularly refers to a Royal Commission Report (know as the Ferry Report and commissioned by the Government of Queensland in 1925) on the social and economic effects of the increasing number of aliens in North Queensland which made references critical of immigrants from southern Europe and specifically described the Greeks as being generally of an undesirable type who do not make good settlers and who added nothing to the wealth and security of the country (Tamis 1994: 15). According to Tamis, the report prompted racial attacks against the Greeks and also led to the perception of Albanians, Yugoslavs and other migrants as constituting a threat to Australia s development, cultural heritage and to Australians employment opportunities. Castles and Miller (2003: 214) noted how some Australians are suspicious of foreigners because they feel that newcomers will take over their jobs, despite the fact that most Greeks arrived without English proficiency and most took up physically demanding and unattractive jobs to earn a living because this lack of skills in the English language limited their access to more attractive blue and white collar jobs. However, hard work and sacrifices by Greek immigrants made them one of the successful migrant groups in Australia; but their success created hostilities from their hosts which resulted in some discrimination and attacks against them (Tamis 1994: ). Nevertheless, Castles and Miller (2003) indicate that the 1960s and 1970s witnessed an increasingly growing acceptance of different people by Australians because migrants participation in the economic activities in Australian had brought economic growth and prosperity to the country. Castles and Miller claim that it is the combination of migrants economic success and pressures from Liberal pressure groups that prompted the abolition of the 11

27 White Australia Policy and gave way to the introduction of Multiculturalism. As a result, there has been a large scale influx of migrants and refugees to Australia from many countries worldwide. This contrasted with the traditional Australian migration policy by which refugees and immigrants were accepted on the basis of their capacity to assimilate into the Australian society; this was judged on the basis of their cultural proximity to the United Kingdom and the degree of historical links with the British and the Irish (Tamis 1994: 16). Gentilli (1983) and Mistilis (1985) indicate that the first Italians arrived in Australia as missionaries and political refugees and their shared goals of success and their collective sense of identity enabled them to amass substantial resources in Australia. Mistilis (1985: 521) argues that the Italians saw themselves not as individuals but as members of a family away from home, and that was an incentive for organising themselves and uniting for the common purpose of improving their economic and social wellbeing in Australia. Furthermore, Mistilis (1985) indicates that Italians collective attendance at church services and engagement in other cultural activities created unity among them. Attendance at church services and engagement in other cultural activities had provided them with opportunities to maintain connections with people from similar regional backgrounds and this strengthened their collective sense of identity. But according to Thompson (1980) a good proportion of Italians returned home at the beginning of 1946 due to hostilities and discrimination against them from some Australians because of a fear of job losses due to competition over the few jobs available. Nevertheless, like the Greeks, many who stayed on later succeeded and established their own businesses, and their descendants have assimilated well into Australian society (Bertelli 1986; Cresciani 1986). The 1991 Community Profile attests that a high proportion of Italo-Australian families own homes and businesses, which is indicative of the extent of their social and 12

28 economic integration into Australian society. However, as Bottomley (1979) indicates, although the Greeks and Italians have successfully resettled and integrated into Australian society, they still maintained close connections with their communities and have a greater tendency to maintain cohesion across generations than other migrants. Among the migrants from the Middle East were the Lebanese. The Lebanese came to Australia for a variety of reasons, including the imposition of heavy taxes by the Ottoman Empire on Lebanese Christians, and subjection to political persecution and Turkish instigated conflicts among the Lebanese ( e.g. between Maronites and Druzes). It was also claimed that rapid population increase had put greater pressure on the declining economy and created severe difficulties for many Lebanese. As a result, many Lebanese left their country for Australia. According to Drury (1981: 26), the Lebanese arrived generally with little education and with a poor command of English, but many had some capital, entrepreneurial skills and much energy for hard work. Drury (1981) argues that it was the combination of their entrepreneurial skills and hard work that made them successful and able to integrate into Australian society. But like the Italians and the Greeks, the Lebanese have maintained their heritage and kept strong links with their country of origin and family ties back home despite their long period of residence in Australia (Drury 1981). Like the Greeks and the Italians, the Lebanese had also faced some hostility from Australians, apparently for the same reasons as the Italians and the Greeks. Literature on immigration in Australia suggests that the migration of Africans, and especially of Sudanese, has only occurred in recent years (Adelaide Migration Museum, 2003 & Jupp, 2001). Arguably they have received minimal research attention from scholars. Most research on refugees and migrants resettling in Australia has been on 13

29 Europeans, Asians and Latin Americans (Cohen 2001; Hiller 2002; Cox, Copper and Adepoju 1999; Franz 2003; Colic-Peisker 2003; Holton et al. 1994; Hinsliff 2007; Cohen 2001). Little has been done on African migrants and refugees (Snubanga-Kyobe and Dimock 2000; Atem 2003; Udo-Ekpo 1999 and Hinsliff 2007) and virtually no studies have been carried out on Sudanese immigration and, in particular, on Southern Sudanese refugees who form the greatest numbers of the refugees in Australia from Sudan, to explore how they are resettling in Australia (Hillier 2002). Further, most of the studies on Africans have not been done from an anthropological perspective but rather from the perspectives of other disciplines within Social Sciences. There have also been few anthropological studies of Sudanese refugees who resettled in USA (Abusharaf 2007; Shady 2003; Holtzman 2000; and Heldenbrand 1996), Canada (Stoll and Johnson 2007) and Simich et al. 2004), and in other countries where Sudanese have taken refuge (Akuei 2004; Fábos 2002 and Saeed 1999). Hence, there is a great need to fill the apparent gap in scholarship in this regard and provide knowledge about the resettlement experiences of Southern Sudanese in Australia. As the Sudanese are among Australia s newest recent arrivals (South Australian Migration Museum 2003 & Jupp 2001), this thesis will provide useful insights into the resettlement experience, the extent of integration of Southern Sudanese refugees into Australian society, as well as their potential to make substantial contributions to their new society. The thesis also has the potential to shape important national debates on the resettlement and integration of Sudanese into Australian society as it will provide valuable knowledge to the public, policy makers, national organisations and support groups delivering settlement support services particularly to Southern Sudanese and other refugee populations from the horn of Africa and other African countries. 14

30 Locating the Thesis The following paragraphs of this chapter establish the main research themes of my thesis and offer a theoretical framework that will be the basis for ethnographic discussion in subsequent thesis chapters. They also situate the thesis within the current anthropological scholarship in the area of forced migration and refugee studies (resettlement and integration) within anthropology. Over the last three decades, refugee population movement has become more prevalent and refugees have become more visible worldwide. However, although it is claimed that globalisation has increased the volume of peoples movement worldwide, it is ironic that the increase in this movement has on the other hand accelerated the tendency for nation states to tighten restrictions on such movement on a global scale. As a result, global immigration has become an issue for many governments. Miles (1999) asserts that the global flow of migrants and refugees has become the subject of a highly contested political debate. This is in sharp contrast with the relative silence about, and desire for, free movement of capital, goods, and services worldwide (also see Appadurai 1996: 27-29). Both Appadurai (1996) and Miles (1999) highlight the inherent paradox regarding the global flow of goods and services in contrast to the flow of people (refugees and migrants), and agree that the migration of capital, goods, services and certain material cultures like music, arts, movies are desired by many societies despite the fact that they too impact on the people of the receiving societies. The flow of people, and particularly refugees and migrants, has caused fear among both the people and governments of receiving societies. This fear has prompted the formulation and establishment of structures to restrict the flow of refugees and migrants globally across nations. This has resulted, as Hage (2003) writes, in paranoid nationalism and in the construction of negative others. 15

31 Although the impacts of refugees and migrants on receiving societies are undeniable, refugees and migrants have become scapegoats for many vices that exist in the receiving community (Hage 2003: 43) and hence the community looks for protection from the threats posed by these negative others (McMaster 2002: 2; Hage 2003: 43, 52-53; also see Said 1978). Miles (1999: 179) also shows that the fear of the others emanates from the belief that the influx of culturally and ethnically distinct people represents a threat to the receiving society s culture and identity (see also Cohen 1980), and this has been used by some members of host countries to claim that the influx is a threat to their society s culture and identity. Thomas (2000:5) highlights the detention of Vietnamese asylum seekers in Hong Kong in the 1980s, suggesting that this provides an interesting analogy to Australia s immigration policy of detaining asylum seekers. Similarly, the research of Klintworth (2001), Nicholls (1997) and Mares (2001) presents evidence about differential treatment of onshore and offshore asylum seekers in Australia. In the current ever increasing movement of refugees and migrants, the traditional migration theory based on the interplay of push and pull factors used to explain migration across national and international boundaries (Jansen 1970 in Jupp 1994: 2; Petersen 1970) has failed to offer adequate explanations for the current circumstances that has forced refugees out of their homelands and to seek resettlement in other countries. Although the line between push and pull factors is barely distinguishable, it has however been recognised that refugee movement is mainly caused by push rather than pull factors. It is also recognised that refugees experiences are much more distinct and severe than those of voluntary migrants who left their countries willingly in search of better lives elsewhere (Castles and Miller 1993). Colson (2003) has highlighted how refugees were uprooted from their places of origin and has discussed the effects of other 16

32 consequential issues such as identity management, manipulation of myth, and boundary construction which refugees faced in their new society of resettlement. In the case of the Southern Sudanese, persistent wars had uprooted millions from their homes and forced them to live elsewhere in exile and as refugees in search of safety. As a result many have been resettled in western countries including Australia. The result is, as Sassen (1999) has pointed out, a creation of diaspora communities that transcend boundaries of nation-states (refer to Chapter Three). Several studies highlight the experiences of refugees in resettlement countries and cast more light on how refugee experiences are different from those of voluntary migrants (Pittaway 1991; Pisarowicz and Toscher 1982; Steen 1993; Kjaerum, Slavensky and Slumstrup 1993; Ager 1999; Harrell-Bond 1999; Colson and Scott 1987, and Lewins and Ly 1985). It is important to recognise here the interplay between legal, political and other structural aspects that shape the global movement of populations, individual community agency and network systems. There is evidence to indicate that although movement of people including refugees and migrants is facilitated or is linked to globalisation, those on move have however encountered regimes that fail to diminish physical, legal, structural and cultural barriers against free movement of people and in particular forced migrants (Marfleet 2006: 21-25). But although this is the case, the literature on transnationalism has emphasised the importance of the links between local and global social networks in the processes of immigration and integration. Thus, transnationalism is a multifaceted and multi-local process and the contemporary transnational flows of people have significant effects upon societies involved, as it impacts on cultural, social and economic interactions at the local and global levels. As such refugees and migrants who have become part of transnational communities have remained intensely connected to their places of origin across the world as well as maintaining worldwide web of 17

33 relations (see page Chapter Six). Thus in the current era of globalisation, refugees and asylum seeks constitute a significant component of diasporic communities (Demetrios 1997:18). In political terms, it could be argued that refugees and asylum seekers have assumed significance which stems from the growing perception that they represent a threat to national security as well as undermining the sovereign right of states to control the admission of foreign others onto their territories. From the literature, such attitudes tend to be prevalent in Western Europe, where immigration from other parts of the world has generally been discouraged but with less success. Nevertheless, refugees and registered asylum applicants do enjoy specific legal status that set them apart from other migrants. It could be noted that in the case of Southern Sudanese refugees resettled in the west and who have become part of the transnational communities, the global networks they have become a part of do not solely consist of refugees, but also of networks that not only link them to their ethnic groups and families, but to other Sudanese from other parts of Sudan as well. These networks are more likely to include a variety of different migrant categories. For examples, Sudanese asylum seekers in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and so forth, as well as expatriates or labour workers in gulf countries or illegal Sudanese workers in Egypt and other countries could well be part of this global social network. As I have indicated earlier, due to the multifaceted nature of refugee experiences, I adopt an interdisciplinary approach in this thesis. This follows from my review of the literature. It appears that there is no single definitive theory that accounts for the diverse experiences of refugees experiences of war, flight, camp life and experiences of life when they are resettled in an unfamiliar society. The choice of an interdisciplinary approach has been driven solely by the complexities inherent in the studies of refugee and forced migration and hence the need to view the experiences of refugees from 18

34 multiple theoretical perspectives. This approach will enable a better understanding of how the Southern Sudanese make sense of their experiences of refugee life and their life of resettlement in Australia. It also enables us to grasp better from their viewpoints how their previous experiences have impacted on the processes of resettlement and integration, and how they renegotiate and construct their identities in a society different from that of their origin. Here I follow Ewing (2004), Malkki (1995a & 1997) and Ager (1999) who provide insights into individual and group experiences of the meaning of the life of exile and resettlement. These studies also show how the construction of identities (individually or as a group) is determined by circumstances (also see Huntington 2004). This is also similar to the work by Jackson (1995), Basso (1996), Entrickin (1991), Massey (1994), and Gupta and Ferguson (1997) where they describe how people socially construct meaning and attach values to the place in which they live [home] (refer to Chapter Four). These studies, including those by Appadurai (1995), Kaplan (1996), and Cohen (1997), inform my understanding of how the Southern Sudanese perceive, construct and attach meaning and value to place and home in the context of their resettlement in Australia. From these, I explore in Chapter Four whether or not the Southern Sudanese have a sense of Australia as their home and as a place of belonging. Additionally, studies by de Haan (2002), and Lewins and Ly (1985) further enable me to approach and comprehend the links and feelings of belonging to Australia or to Southern Sudan among Southern Sudanese. Here I consider the degree of relationship (frequencies of contacts and regular financial remittance) to the next of kin and family members left behind and the anxieties resulting from the inability to support them. Informants have indicated that leaving kin and family members behind means that they will have to make regular remittances and spent a considerable amount of their income 19

35 on making regular phone calls to inquire about the well being of those they have left in refugee camps and in Sudan and, if necessary, to help them. They feel obliged to do this. This is illustrated by Akuei s (2004) vivid descriptions of prayers, songs, speeches and attitudes among the Dinka refugees in Cairo which were intended to convey messages to remind relatives and kin leaving for resettlement in the west not to forget their obligations and responsibilities to help people back home and elsewhere who are suffering. In Australia, being aware of these morsels of conveyed messages during the time of departure to Australia, and being constantly reminded of them through regular phone calls from kin left behind, they are kept aware of the moral need to meet such cultural obligations and responsibilities, which can only be fulfilled through considerable family or individual sacrifices by way of a reduction of expenditure on their essential needs. Since they have not yet accumulated income in Australia, combined with their being aware of the uncertainties of those left behind, any failure to support their family and relatives at home results in feelings of guilt and shame. This quotation from Jokpi explains what my informants implicitly feel or mean when they talk about leaving their next of kin and family members behind : Almost every week I receive phone calls from my family members, other relatives and fiends in Sudan, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia and Egypt. They only call for a minute and ask me to call them back when I called back, they will ask for help, I mean for money because someone there is sick or ill and needs treatment or children are no longer attending school because school fees, uniform, books, and so are lacking they don t have the money to buy these things. Most of the times, I don t have the money to send to them because I am not employed, I could only loan from friends and pay back later whenever I find some money. I could imagine the situations they would be in there and so I really feel I should help them somehow. I feel ashamed if I didn t support them or to tell them that I don t have any money but even if I tell them that I don t have any money, they won t believe me they think everyone living in Australia has the money and so I don t like to help them. (Jokpi interviewed on 23 March 2006) 20

36 Most informants have indicated that the need to support those who are ill or sick, or to assist funerals of dead relatives back home or in refugee camps in other African countries, in certain instances could override their own basic family needs here; that is why Jokpi has to borrow some money if such demands urgently arose at a time when he has no money. Arguably this enduring sense of connectedness and relatedness, of extended kinship obligations and responsibilities among Southern Sudanese are likely to be ongoing. From the data it is evident that most informants with roles and in positions (spouse, parents, siblings, uncle/aunt) charged with securing or maintaining the well being of family members, and of meeting the needs of other kin, feel compelled to help them back home or in refugee camps. Informants have indicated that it is their moral and cultural duty to help next of kin and other family members, and if they do not, they become particularly vulnerable to feelings of shame, guilt and of inadequacy (see also Oxfell 2004: 100). Thus, in this situation, my informants tend to be torn between meeting their own settlement needs here and the needs of their next of kin, other relatives and friends left behind. They find themselves experiencing conflicting currents of responsibilities and obligations that pull them and their resources in multiple directions; there is conflict between their capacity to meet fully their settlement needs on the one hand and to save income to assist their family back home on the other. This concurs with a study by Bulcha (1988) of Ethiopian refugees in Sudan who had left next of kin and other relatives behind. This study indicates that those who left behind their next of kin and other relatives were constantly plagued with anxieties about how to support them. In the case of my informants, such anxieties tend to exacerbate their practical and psychological resettlement in their new society. Also, similar studies by Horst and Van Hear (2002), Ahmed (2000), Akuei (2004) and Eckstein (2003) have 21

37 shown how refugees have effectively engaged in making remittances to kin in home countries for varied reasons including avoidance of shame and guilt. On the other hand, to ascertain my informants degree of attachment to Australia, I have considered whether the acquisition of Australian citizenship, English language, permanent jobs, and property (house) in Australia constitute a claim of full social membership and a sense of attachment, belonging to and identification with Australia. Other studies by Colson (2003), Krulfeld (1994) and Adelman et al. (1994) are also relevant in this thesis because they inform me about how refugees reconstruct their family lives, their relationships and how they renegotiate shifts in gender within the domestic sphere when they are resettled in an environment with an unfamiliar culture. These studies also help to illuminate how the Southern Sudanese interpret new experiences, cope with shifts in gender role, and create meanings out of the changes in their lives. Theoretical Perspective In this section I will examine past and current debates on migration in general, paying special attention to discourses about refugees and their experiences of resettlement and integration in host societies. It is also here that I situate this thesis in the subfield of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies within anthropology. In exploring the settlement experiences of Southern Sudanese, I will consider the impact of their current experiences of the life of resettlement in Australia. Within their experiences of resettlement, I will focus on identity, home and place because migratory experience and resettlement tend to disturb the linkages between identity, home and place of belonging (Gupta and Ferguson 1992: 12). I will also consider the prospects of integration by exploring, among other things, interactions with Australians and fellow Southern 22

38 Sudanese, the support my informants received, access to employment, housing and to settlement services, as well as the shift in gender roles, and changes in cultural practices and family relationships. Integration In this thesis integration is a one of the key concepts and hence, before I proceed further, I would like to indicate its use here. The term integration signifies complex and inexhaustible experiences. Its use in this thesis is traceable to my sociological perspective. As I have shown earlier, the traditional migration theory of push-pull factors no longer adequately explains the immense and socially distinct refugees experience of migration and resettlement in an unfamiliar society. The deficit in this theory emanates from the involuntary nature of refugee movement from their country of origin. The social, economic and psychological effects of migration, and the physical losses that refugees experienced, are often lost in the perception that migration is mainly a response to negative circumstances at the point origin and positive circumstances at the point of destination. This thesis attempts to move beyond this traditional theory which portrays resettlement in the host country, and the social integration that may follow, as processes that guarantee social reproduction and harmony between newcomers and their hosts. It recognises that conflicts between refugees cultural traditions and those of their host do occur as a result of differing cultural orientations (Giddens 1979). In the literature it is recognised that the term integration is difficult to define because it means different things to different people. For instance, integration can imply achieving equal opportunities and rights for all members living in the same society. This implies that becoming integrated means achieving improved living conditions due to equality of 23

39 access to employment, healthcare, housing, social welfare services, and so forth. But for some people it can have negative connotations; for these, integration invokes the unwanted imposition of uniformity and is viewed as a way by which governments or institutions prescribe established patterns of activities and involvement in given activities within a society. Thus integration can be seen as a means whereby institutions and organisations define, categorise and discipline people in the society. In Foucault s (1977) view, it is a legitimate disciplinary measure by which institutions tame individuals and groups in order to contain conflicts and to guarantee a minimum amount of negative impact on the existing social order. From a policy perspective, integration is a set of organised routines and activities which refugees are suppose to understand, accept and perform. By understanding and participating in these organised activities, refugees are assumed by the authorities to be able to function independently, or with only limited support from others. This is expected to be reflected in their ability to plan and to organise their lives successfully in the context of their new society. The underlying assumption here is that refugees or migrants become integrated when they fully participate in the various activities of their host society and become positive contributors in their new society (Coleman 1994). However, this thesis is not premised on this perspective, but rather on the perspectives of Southern Sudanese people regarding what they define as successful resettlement and integration and how they think they achieve these outcomes. The thesis focuses on networks and relationships among Southern Sudanese and between them and members of their host society. It explores their participation in social, cultural and economic activities as well as their access to, and the support they receive from, settlement support services. I argue that in their totality these are significant in understanding how these influence the resettlement and integration processes of Southern Sudanese in 24

40 Australia. Further, successful integration is only possible when Southern Sudanese make a transition from having a sense of being newcomers to having a sense of belonging to, and having responsibilities (being on jobs, etc) and obligations (paying taxes, etc) towards, the Australian society. Arguably these could only occur as a result of a growing confidence through building social and economic networks with Australians. I also note here that during my fieldwork most informants have told me that having social interactions and friendships with Australians made them feel liked and accepted by Australians and that this enhanced the development of a sense of belonging to a community and a feeling of being part of Australian society. Idurra s comment attests to this when he says that: my Australian neighbours are good, we interact, visit one another and sometimes enjoy time out together, they have also encouraged me to go bowling with them in their club they made me feel liked, welcomed and belong here, to this neighbourhood, they sometimes took me and my family to the beach or to see other places, like to the museum, the zoo and botanic garden and support us in various way, like with transport to church for prayer and to shopping. In this social context I will argue that social interactions between my informants and their Australian neighbours, having time out together, and establishing membership of social or cultural clubs/associations, will help to define attachment as well as local identity with their neighbourhoods because these enable them find their social space in their neighbourhoods. These tend to provide structures that promote and enhance the development of social capital (making friendships) between them and their Australian neighbours. The combination of all of these is similar to what Bourdieu (1986:248) describes as genuine or potential resources which accrued from the possession and maintenance of a long-lasting networks and relationships or of mutual social contacts. Other scholars, including Baker (1990: 619), Burt (1992: 52 & 355) and Portes (1998: 25

41 6), have similarly shown the significance of social capital and the resources resulting from it which enables individuals to enhance their lives (also see Bourdieu 1986: 243; Bourdieu & Waquant 1992: 119). I would like also to emphasise here that social relationships and networks of support (social capital), as well as the services received from fellow Southern Sudanese, Australian friends and governmental and nongovernmental settlement support organisations, significantly influence the participation of Southern Sudanese in any activity in Australian society. Participation gives them a sense of identifying with and belonging to their new society and, as hinted earlier, this is symptomatic of success in resettlement and integration, and this reflects inclusivity. This is supported by Bommes (2004: 213) proposition that some conditions such as availability of and access to membership in social, cultural, and religious associations/institutions of the receiving societies, and the underlying interactions and relationships, are pivotal to the inclusion of newcomers. Similarly, ethnographic studies by Shandy (2002) and Holtzman (2000) of the Nuer ethnic group from Southern Sudan, who resettled in the USA, showed that their engagement in church activities and interactions with their hosts, the American members of the churches, eased their transition into their new society (see Chapter Five). In the analysis of the data I found this also to be the case with the Southern Sudanese who resettled in South Australia. However there is an indication that they need confidence in themselves, the trust of the members of their new society and adequate information concerning the availability and requirements of social/cultural associations/organisations, clubs, churches and other civic institutions before joining. This is, however, possible when the available associations or organisations are willing to accept and engage the Southern Sudanese in their activities by relaxing rigid 26

42 conditions of entry and participation. If this happens, then it is likely that bridging capital would accrue from the participation in those civic organisations/associations or clubs. This is what Putnam (1993: 35) refers to as a set of horizontal association (connections) or bridging social capital. These connections are likely to help my informants in their new environment get to know others and share information, and although Putnam recognises the fragility of such connections and relations, he suggests that these connections could be useful in linking individuals to work and other opportunities in life and are likely to be sources of social inclusion (see also Putnam, 2000). Furthermore, according to Frank (2005: 2), linked networks with others are pivotal for leveraging resources beyond one s own community. Also, as indicated by Bourdieu (1985), Coleman (1988) and Putnam (1995 & 2000), social relationships assist individuals to move positively forward in life. An underpinning example of this could be in the area of employment: it is likely that employers would be more likely to trust information about potential employees when it comes from trustworthy people in their networks who are refereeing job applicants (see also Hansen 2000). It is worth noting here that the literature on resettlement and integration of refugees and migrants in Australia discusses three aspects of integration: occupational adjustment, identification with Australia and acculturation. Occupational adjustment relates to refugee and migrant participation, access and satisfaction with available jobs. Identification with Australia includes naturalisation and a sense of being Australian and belonging to Australian society. On the other hand, acculturation is adjustment as the result of contacts made with different cultures (Redfield et al in Doná and Berry, 1999). It is acknowledged that acculturation occurs when groups or individuals from different cultures come into continuous first time contact with one another and the contacts then result in subsequent changes in the original cultural patterns of either or 27

43 both groups. Hence, it is a two-way process that requires changes from both groups. Integration then is perceived as a way to accommodate newcomers. However, despite these perspectives on integration, it has been difficult to develop a practical and successful integration policy even in countries with a long history of accommodating migrants and refugees. This is because practical integration is dependent on the variety and quality of support to refugees as well as the refugee s willingness to participate fully in the social, cultural and economic activities of their host society and to become resourceful members of that society. I conclude that this is because policies formulated to bring about the integration of refugees often tend not to result from consultation with refugees and therefore often do not include their inputs, and programs and activities that concern their lives; in other words, such policies often result from a top-down approach to integration. Friedman (2004) argues that practical integration is not the same as formal state integration due to the assumption in most western countries that refugees would become integrated into the host societies by joining and participating in the available social, cultural and economic activities of their new society rather than organising, joining and participating in their own activities. However, although refugees do participate in the host society s activities, it is often the case that they are not willing to forgo certain aspects of their own cultural practices that promise the maintenance and continuity of their identity. Hence, it in this context, Collinson (1993: 18) questions the integration of migrants and refugees from more distant countries and cultures into the societies that host them by suggesting that refugees and migrants are perceived to pose social, economic and political challenges to receiving countries. The literature of early migration to Europe, USA and Australia confirms that the economic interests of the sending and receiving countries, and the proximity of the migrants and refugees ways 28

44 of life to those within the receiving countries, had underpinned other considerations in accepting migrants and refugees. It is claimed that the integration of immigrants and refugees from disadvantaged economic backgrounds, and of distinct ethnicity and culture, is problematic to a receiving country because those migrants and refugees share little in common with their hosts (Collinson 1993: 19). In this thesis I do not follow the functionalist view of integration which was previously part of modernisation theory and which proposed that there are patterns in society that underline unitary function. This view tends to down-play the existence of contractions in those patterns as a result of social, cultural, economic, and political backgrounds that are at stake in the process of the integration of refugees and migrants into their host societies (Connolly 1995). I also do not follow the multicultural models which are put forward as being conducive to the successful resettlement and integration of refugees (Collinson 1993) because, as Rex (1985) has proposed, there are potential conflicts prevalent in multicultural societies. Rex indicates that civic structures in multicultural societies are ridden with conflicts which have the potential to challenge the existing social order. I instead follow Herzfeld (1987) and Pahl (1991) who propose that resettlement and integration entail identity issues which contrast with sameness in a diverse society. Thus I argue that successful resettlement and integration of the Southern Sudanese into the Australian society is a product of, among other things, interactions between them and members of the Australian society across social, cultural and economic spheres. Historically in the classic immigration countries of Australia, Canada and the USA, the favoured policy was assimilation of migrants and refugees. Before the advent of the theories of acculturation and social integration, assimilation theory, now considered racially infused, was the dominant theory used in immigration studies and by policy 29

45 makers and practitioners. Assimilation was grounded on the premise that migrants and refugees would lose all their characteristics through interactions with their hosts and become like the host. Unlike acculturation and integration, it is a one-way direction towards the host population. As a policy, it had succeeded to some extent because migrants and refugees were from societies that shared a lot in common with these resettlement societies (Bade & Weiner 1997; Thränhardt 1992). The underlying principle was that assimilation diminishes cultural dissimilarities that serve to mark out differences and sustain membership (solidarity) of particular groups. However, in the current global refugee flows, resettled refugees to those classic immigration countries come from societies that share so little with them and therefore the importance given to assimilation as a policy and theory has waned. Thus, instead, integration in the context of multiculturalism has become a favoured policy for refugees and migrants in those classic immigration countries including Australia. I would like to state here that multiculturalism is not one of the themes of this thesis. However, it is worth noting that multiculturalism proposes cohesion and harmonious coexistence of cultural heterogeneity. It is a move away from the paradigm of assimilation to multiple ethnic diversifications in society and a rejection of a society with only one identity (Ritzer 1996). It is a state sanctioned policy that calls for an inclusive society and acceptance of diversity as a source of inspiration and strength (Puhle 1998: 255; Landfried 2003 in Huntington 2004). In contrast however, Marks (1997) contends that people living in a multicultural society and believing in the same core values do not often exhibit social cohesion; he claims that multiculturalism does not nurture integration. Marks suggests, instead, that multiculturalism is about power and domination based on inclusion and exclusion of others, and that policy decisions are 30

46 made on this basis regarding who is to be included into the multicultural society and who is not. It is worth reiterating here that voluntary movement of migrants arises mainly from people s attempts to improve their livelihoods elsewhere. More often than not it follows cultural and historical patterns in that migrants are likely to move to destinations where they can speak the language or already have friends/relatives (Wallace 1999: 203). Unlike refugees, voluntary migrants are not seen as helpless individuals or groups. Accordingly, de Haan and Rogaly (2002: 5) show that voluntary labour migration is a social as well as an economic process because it binds up the ways in which migration is arranged as well as its meaning to the people both in the country of origin and of its destination. Similarly, de Haan, Brock and Coulibaly (2002) indicate that migration has historically been crucial to the livelihoods both of those migrating and those left behind, and it creates vast social networks and relationships across countries. In contrast, the movement of refugees is often involuntary, involves a search for safety and protection, and often does not follow historical or cultural patterns. Usually, there is no preference in the point of destination and no prior information about countries they fled to or resettled in; such migrants are unlikely to know the languages of, or have friends and relatives in, host countries (Pisarowicz and Vicki 1982). Hence, Scudder and Colson (1982) indicate that refugees often face unfamiliar challenges in their host society as they struggle to re-establish themselves in their new environment. This is exacerbated by psychological stress resulting from compulsory displacement from home and bereavement due to the loss of kin, friends, assets and other necessities of life. Scudder and Colson (1982: 272) affirm that, after being uprooted from their homes and resettled in an unfamiliar environment, refugees are confronted with unfamiliar uncertainties. As a result, they are likely to cling to their old ways of life and practices rather than taking 31

47 risks by adopting practices and ways of life they are not familiar with. However, as Turton (1996) indicates, when refugees (forced migrants) have a choice about where they would like to be resettled (considering availability of friends/relatives or acquired information about countries of their choosing), they are likely to adjust and adapt with relative ease to their countries of resettlement. In recent years the arrival of African refugees in western countries, including Australia, has invited debates about the nature, possibility and difficulties of their integration into their host societies. As such, a number of examples of re-settlement and integration of Africans in western countries have been studied (Pisarowicz and Toscher 1982; Steen 1993; Kjaerum, Slavensky, and Slumstrup 1993). Unfortunately, there has been very little attempt by scholars in Australia to examine critically the social relationships/interactions between these recent arrivals (the Southern Sudanese) and members of the societies that host them. The literature on refugee resettlement in Australia suggests that Australia s experience with Sudanese refugees in particular, and with African refugees and migrants in general, is only very recent. This is because, generally, Africans were only permitted to resettle in Australia after 1973 when the 1901 Immigration Act known as the White Australia Policy was abolished (Jupp 2001; Adelaide Migration Museum 2003). Arguably, there is a lack of knowledge about the resettlement and integration experiences of Southern Sudanese refugees who resettled in Australia because virtually no research has been undertaken on this visible and newly emerging refugee group. As a result there is no available and relevant knowledge on their resettlement experiences and how they perceive the resettlement services which they have received. The available studies on African communities, including the Southern Sudanese, show that they have not been conducted from the perspective of the Africans or Sudanese refugees, but rather from 32

48 the perspective of government or service providers (support organisations). Thus, there is a need for research to explore the experiences of the life of resettlement and the processes of integration of Southern Sudanese in Australia approached from their own perspectives. As Holton et al. (1994: 52) show, most research into Australian immigration is undertaken from the perspective of Australians rather than that of the migrants or refugees. The research also focuses on the lives of immigrants and refugees in Australia and neglects their life experiences/circumstances prior to their arrival in Australia, which I would claim significantly influence their lives and their resettlement and integration abilities in Australia. Furthermore, Lohrentz s (2004) survey of the literature of the immigration of refugees from Northeast Africa (Eritrean, Ethiopian, Somali and Sudanese) who resettled in USA and Canada since 1970s reveals that most studies there concentrate on the resettlement and adjustment needs of these refugees, but do not explore the relationships between the refugees and their host communities and how these refugees renegotiate their identities in the new societies. This implies that the literature contributes little to our understanding of the complexities of the relationships between resettled refugees and those who host them, or of how those relationships in turn affect their adjustment or the resettlement and integration processes, and shape or reconstruct their identities as they rebuild their lives in the new environment. The literature on immigrant and refugee resettlement in Australia, USA, Canada and other western countries indicates that the Southern Sudanese refugees who resettled in Australia have generally received less academic attention than those who resettled in USA and Canada. This thesis attempts to bridge this gap. This is done by relying on an ethnographic approach (methodology and techniques) in order to provide an in-depth 33

49 understanding of the resettlement experiences of the Southern Sudanese and to show how their experiences of resettlement reshape their notions of home, place and identity in the context of Australia. To better understand these, I focus on their relationships and interactions with Australians and with fellow Southern Sudanese and show how these affect the processes of resettlement and integration in Australia. As such, this thesis adds anthropological knowledge to the limited literature on the ethnography of the resettlement experiences and integration of refugees from unfamiliar cultural, social and economic backgrounds into societies which are ethnically and racially very distinct from that of their own. There are studies, including those by Ager (1999), Harrell-Bond (1999) and Lewins and Ly (1985), which have been carried out on refugees and other forced migrants. However, most of these studies concern issues such as the uprooting of refugees, flight and camp experiences, repatriation, resettlement, adjustment, violence and torture, post traumatic disorders, and mental health. In this thesis I endeavour to explore and understand resettlement and integration from the perspective of their complex connections to sets of social, cultural and economic activities that transcend the Sudanese community groups in Australia and affect the Australian society at large. These provide a context and a basis on which I can understand whether my informants feel more attached to Australia, or to their country of origin, and how these feelings have developed. Studies by Barnes (2001) and Steven (1997) of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees in Australia are relevant here because they highlight how the Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees in Australia feel attached to the country. Drawing on these studies, I will accentuate the factors that influenced my informants feelings of attachment to Australian society, or those which worked against such an attachment but instead favoured attachment to their country of origin. 34

50 Another relevant study to draw on here is DIMIA s (2002) longitudinal survey between 1993/4 and 1999/2000 which assessed the experiences of recent migrants in Australia and the role played by Australian migrant services. This study shows how changes in the overall state of the economy and in government policy have had a substantial effect on the early integration of migrants in Australia. However, there is a problem with this survey because it generally treats refugees like migrants, without taking into account the refugees diverse experiences, backgrounds and the circumstances that made them refugees and which resulted to their resettlement in Australia. This generalisation probably resulted from the fact that refugees to Australia are accorded permanent residence status like other migrants. There are few separate statistics available on refugees as a particular category of migrants (Holton, et al. 1994: 194) and, due to this, very little is known about the resettlement experiences of refugees as a separate group. It is often the case that the resettlement of refugees in a society can generate opposition from the host population because the new arrivals are seen as a threat to the security, jobs, and identity of the hosts, and as sources of disease and criminal behaviour. While these are some of the arguments advanced against the resettlement of refugees and migrants, it appears that most members of a host society, and some policy makers who argue against the resettlement of refugees in their midst, are not well-informed about the conditions and the plight of their refugee newcomers. Unlike in the past where Australia had only accepted migrants and refugees from a limited and restricted list of countries, Australia currently resettles migrants and refugees from all over the globe and has become one of the principle refugee and migrant resettling countries. Australia s most recent arrivals are from Africa, including the Southern Sudanese who arrived as a result of wars and political and social upheaval that has plagued Sudan for decades. But although the Southern Sudanese have become 35

51 visible in Australian society, there has been very limited anthropological scholarship which has examined their resettlement and integration experiences in Australia. The Southern Sudanese face different resettlement and integration hurdles from those of other migrants and refugees in Australia due to their different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Although the same can be said of the other refugees and migrants who have resettled in Australia, I would like to reiterate that the Southern Sudanese have undergone one of the longest wars in the world. Until February 2005, the Southern Sudanese have suffered and endured a brutal war, and social and economic upheavals for thirty-nine years out of the fifty years since Sudan became a sovereign state in January Since 1995 there has been only ten years of relative peace in Southern Sudan; for most of those years Southern Sudan was consumed in wars against Northern Sudanese domination and their forceful Islamic and Arabisation policies directed against the people of Southern Sudan. Because the war had not permitted most of them to enroll in any form of formal education, many Southern Sudanese arrived in Australia without the literacy and numeracy skills so essential for living in urban settings. Most had spent years in refugee camps with very limited, if any, access to opportunities that would have enhanced their life skills. In addition, their different cultural, socio-economic and civic orientations would have exacerbated the resettlement challenges they encountered in Australia. I have asserted that an interdisciplinary approach is needed in order to understand better how the Southern Sudanese make sense of their experiences of resettlement in Australia. The thesis shows those factors that either favour or work against my informants identification with Australia and their sense of belonging and attachment to Australian Society. 36

52 I have also claimed that the classic explanation of migration using push and pull factors does not provide adequate explanations of the circumstances that uproot refugees from their homes and the subsequent experiences that follow the uprooting, displacement and resettlement because it does not address fully the combination of factors that mark refugees as a distinctly different category of migrants. My position here is that voluntary migrant movements, unlike the involuntary movements of refugees, pivot around the assumption that there are economic benefits in the countries of destination which outweigh those in the countries of departure/origin. The pull and push theory generally depicts migration as a desire to escape poverty or low socio-economic status in the countries of origin; it is more often than not a move by migrants from a relatively economically depressed environment to relatively affluent societies or countries. Although I do not deny that the reasons which forced refugees to flee their countries are complex and include economic hardships because war, persecution and so forth make their lives difficult, I advocate here that security and/or safety are the core reasons forcing refugees to flee from their home countries. Movement of voluntary migrants is based on calculated considerations of the economic, material or symbolic benefits to be gained, and is also based on a consideration of all relevant information about the countries of destinations. In contrast, refugees often do not have this luxury when they are being forced to abandon their home countries. Their movements result from flight due to potentially precarious or life threatening situations at home, and hence they are unable to remain at home or return home from countries of asylum because the danger to their lives still remains in the home countries. As a result, when situations at home do not permit them to return, it is then that they will eventually seek resettlement elsewhere (Kunz 1973: 145). Arguably, the push and pull factors obscure these differences. In short, refugee movement often arises from violence and 37

53 persecution sponsored by the state apparatus, or situations that result in civil strikes, war and the fact that the state is unable to offer protection to its citizens. The push and pull theory fails to account for these factors and hence to mark refugees as distinct categories of migrants within the migration phenomenon. In this chapter I have offered a brief historical account of migration to Australia and how Australian immigration policies have changed over time from the White Australia Policy to its demise and the acceptance of migrants and refugees from all over the globe. I have also shown that in the classic migration countries of Australia, Canada and the USA, the policy of assimilation of refugees and migrants has waned in favour of policies which emphasise the importance of integration. In the next Chapter I will describe my field sites and how I collected my data for this thesis. I will show where my informants were located and how they were selected to participate in this research. I will also reflect on my position as an insider researcher and the challenges I encountered during the fieldwork. 38

54 CHAPTER TWO FIELD SITES AND FIELDWORK Introduction In Chapter One I outlined the structure of my thesis and the theoretical perspectives that inform the discussion of my thesis themes in each chapter. I also highlighted the central questions of the thesis and the potential contributions of the thesis to Anthropology, and especially to the subfield of forced migrations, refugee studies and refugee settlement. This chapter provides an ethnographic description of the field sites and explains the methods and techniques I used to conduct and carry out my fieldwork among my informants - the Southern Sudanese refugees who resettled in Australia when I was volunteering with the Migrant Resource Centre of South Australia (MRCSA) and the Australian Refugee Association (ARA). These organisations deliver the bulk of the settlement services to refugees and migrants in South Australia, including the Southern Sudanese. Before commencing my fieldwork in MRCSA and ARA, I made preliminary contacts with relevant authorities in these organisations regarding my intention to do voluntary work and part of my fieldwork in their organisations, and also to seek their support in permitting me to interview some of their staff who deliver settlement support services to Southern Sudanese. However, I would like to state here that the participation of the staff was negotiated on the basis that whatever they said would be taken to represent their own views and opinions and not those of their respective organisations. Before I began my fieldwork in early January 2006, I had to be cleared of any criminal record by the police; this was a policy of those organisations regarding anyone doing 39

55 voluntary work with them. That was because my role as a volunteer would require me to visit and assist clients in their residences and hence it was deemed important to check volunteers for any criminal wrong doing. This is one of the ways of protecting their clients. This chapter shows how and where I conducted in-depth interviews (unstructured and structured) and undertook Participant Observation on Southern Sudanese informants in several social settings, including within families and other socio-cultural and religious activities. In addition to the Southern Sudanese, I also interviewed staff of MRCSA and ARA and observed them while they delivered settlement services to Southern Sudanese. I spent about fourteen months in the field; I interviewed and observed my Southern Sudanese informants and the staff members of the two organisations from late January 2006 to April The languages I used during the interviews were the English, Juba Arabic, Bari, and Kuku. This chapter also describes a range of available settlement services delivered by the MRCSA and ARA, which are the main support organisations or service providers delivering settlement services in South Australia to refugees and migrants. I carried out voluntary work and part of my fieldwork at MRCSA and ARA because they are the settlement support organisations most frequently visited by Southern Sudanese refugees. Methodology The ethnographic methods used for gathering the data for this thesis are mostly in-depth interviews and Participant Observations. I obtained data through long hours of Participant Observation which I spent in the fields with different informants 40

56 individually or as family and groups, interacting and networking in various social activities and sites. Since the work by Bronislaw Malinoski and Franz Boas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, anthropology has distinguished itself from the other social science disciplines by its use of and emphasis on Participant Observation, in-depth examination of social contexts, and the importance of the length of time researchers embedded themselves in the field. Ever since, ethnography has been the primary method used in anthropology, and the texts produced from ethnographic work have resulted into anthropology. Hence, I follow this useful and rich tradition and I contend that this is where my accountability as a researcher in this thesis lies. In-depth Structured and Unstructured Interviews In collecting my research data, I used in-depth face-to-face structured and unstructured interviews. This provided me with the opportunity to learn and write down in detail responses from my informants in a narrative way: this included backgrounds or histories, experiences of war, plight, flight, and life in exile in camps and in displacement within Sudan. It also enabled informants to narrate their current experiences of the life of resettlement in Australia as well as their views and perceptions of the new environment. I contacted one informant at a time. The nature of the interview took the form of discussions/conversations; I could guide and control the discussions/conversation while at the same time I could be flexible to allow leads to other relevant issues or topics to come up during the discussions. I would then follow up any relevant leads. The in-depth interviews were important and permitted questions exploring complex interpersonal issues including wife-husband, parent-child relations, gender role reversal and so forth. This method offered me better rapport with an 41

57 interviewee, and also provided interpersonal harmony and compatibility between my informants and myself during the period of the fieldwork. It also enabled me to adopt and modify questions and the wordings of the questions and so clarify questions not well understood by my informants. Thus, unlike using questionnaires, in-depth interviews permitted informants to tell their stories in ways that were meaningful to them. Participant Observation I also used Participant Observation as a tool of data collection during visits to informants in their homes and at various social events and activities in different sites. Participant Observation allows me to understand my informants experiences, actions and behaviours in relatively natural settings (homes and social events) as opposed to interviews settings. Those settings offered relatively unaffected views of my informants behaviour and actions, which may otherwise not have been present in an interview environment. In ethnographic literature, it is acknowledged that informants are likely to withhold information or suppress certain behaviour when asked about them in an interview environment for reasons better known, or even unknown, to them. Hence, since my use of ethnography was to learn and describe aspects of my informants ways of lives, it was of significant importance for me to take part in Participant Observation in order to learn from them by participating and observing what they did and to ask them questions later. Operating within the context enabled me to observe and listen to what informants do and say and that notably enriched my ethnography. Participating in the social activities of my informants was important in that it enabled me to learn from informants experiences of their daily lives. As O Reilly (2005: 10 & 84) shows, it is only by talking and listening to the researched in context 42

58 that researchers can get informants to describe how they think and feel about certain issues. My choice of Participant Observation was driven by the fact that asking informants to talk about their personal life experiences is likely to yield different data from that generated through interviews. Participant Observation also allows me to capture actions or behaviours that could otherwise not be exhibited in interview settings. It also stimulates relations between my informants and me and creates a sense of commonality/familiarity constructed around my being with them and as a Southern Sudanese. Such a construction was so important in the field because it prevented them from seeing me as a stranger in their community. The importance of Participant Observation in collecting data for this thesis is that it situated me in the lives of my informants, but at the same time allowed me to maintain a social distance from my informants during the time I spent with them observing and noting down data. This method resulted in a detailed collection of data because it permitted me to observe most aspects of my informants lives including body gestures (eye gaze, facial and hand expressions, and so on). Using only non-participant observation methods may give way to limited insight into the nature of the social contexts or activities being studied. My participating in the activities of my informants, while observing them at the same time, enhanced my comprehension of how they act and behave when they are in group vis-àvis when they are not, and also as individuals when they are in the confines of their home environments. However, I am also aware that Participant Observation may not capture everything that goes on and to complement it, I have taken some photographs and short video clips to capture the detail of certain behaviours and activities that would otherwise be difficult to interpret during observation on site in the time available. 43

59 During my fieldwork I found Participant Observation enriching in that it permitted me to modify questions that I would ask later on during in-depth interviews. Participation in an activity itself made me become more familiar to informants and that in turn made them more willing to talk about their experiences of life and to behave relatively characteristically. This supports Gold s (1997) assumption that when a researchers presence in social settings becomes more familiar to participants as time passes, informants are less likely to behave uncharacteristically. Gold attributes this to face-toface relationships between researchers and informants because the researchers would demonstrate to informants that they are there to learn about their life experiences without making any judgment on them. In my case, participation in activities together with my informants also helped both my informants and me to develop and maintain positive relationships, which in turn gave way to openness and truthfulness in discussing the themes of my research and to generate the data I need. The Field Sites According to Gupta and Ferguson (1997: 37), a field is where anthropologists go in order to capture and understand different forms of knowledge within the field from different social (cultural) and political settings and to collect the data necessary to produce ethnography. Arguably the methods and techniques used in the field vary according to the situations in the field and the social, cultural or political context in which the field is situated. In this study, I relied mainly on the ethnographic methods of Participant Observation and in-depth structured and unstructured interviews. Interviews and Participant Observation were conducted within the informants everyday life activities in homes, at social events, or while I assisted informants in shopping and in searching and locating 44

60 rental property (accommodation). Participant Observation was used to complement the in-depth structured and unstructured interviews. It was through these methods that I collected the qualitative and some quantitative ethnographic data for this thesis. The targeted informants are Southern Sudanese refugees who have been resettled in South Australia through Australian Government Humanitarian and Refugee Program in recent years. In addition some staff members of support organisations delivering settlement services to them were also targeted. The methodology and techniques I used were adapted to suit the conditions and the social milieu of the field and the sites. I spent separately three months with MRCSA from January 2006 to April 2006 and another three months with ARA from March 2006 to June 2006 respectively. The remaining months of my fourteen months of fieldwork period were spent doing fieldwork among the Southern Sudanese in visiting them in their families, attending and participating with them in their social events, and assisting some in shopping and in searching private rental property. While I was volunteering at MRCSA and ARA, I had two roles to play: one was my role as their volunteer and the other was as a researcher doing Participant Observation on both Southern Sudanese who come to receive settlement services and some staff in these organisations and to interview them as well. In playing these two roles I was often conscious of the need to draw a line between the two regarding what information those organisations regarded as confidential and what was not. It is essential to note here that the main reasons why I preferred to be in those organisations were to make myself known to those Southern Sudanese who I did not know before, to experience for myself what is it like to service refugees, and to observe the interactions that were going on during the provision and reception of those services between the staff and the Southern Sudanese. 45

61 I would like to indicate here that the contacts and home visitations for the purpose of this research were organised and carried out after I had left volunteering. This was in order to eliminate or minimise power relations that were likely to develop between those I delivered services to in those organisations and me. When I visited former recipients of my services later on as potential informants to request their willingness to support me by participating in the research, I had to inform them that I was no longer volunteering in those organisations as I had to leave in order to concentrate fully on conducting my fieldwork. This was to eliminate any form of a dependency relation between them as recipients of the services that I had provided and me as their provider. My voluntary work with MRCSA and ARA offered me the opportunity to interact with both the Southern Sudanese and their staff. It was through this that I knew many Southern Sudanese whom I had never met before, and some of them later became my informants. The voluntary work proved to be essential to establish trust, rapport and good relationships with both my Southern Sudanese informants and the staff. My duties in those organisations involved the provision of practical support to Southern Sudanese clients by assisting them to find affordable rental accommodation, assessing their needs, recommending limited financial support in the form of vouchers to enable them pay part of their phone, electricity or gas bills, and either arranging appointments for them with other service organisations or making referrals to relevant service providers that have services which are not available at MRCSA and ARA. I also assisted Southern Sudanese people to complete their forms or applications (medical, Centrelink, tenancy applications or contracts, housing, educational), and provided various information as required. On other occasions, a staff member and I delivered used furniture and other essential household goods to clients in their residences. 46

62 My participation in those activities helped me to build good relationships and trust with my potential informants and created conducive atmosphere in which I could later conduct interviews and carry out Participant Observation. Participant Observation was carried out to complement or reinforce in-depth interviews and to gain from informants a better understanding of how the services are administered and delivered, and what their views were regarding the services being delivered to them as well as how they thought the services they received had impacted on their resettlement in Australia. In addition to MRSA, ARA and my informants homes, I also followed some of my informants to worship services such as church, funeral and burial ceremonies, as well as other social and cultural events such as meetings organised by the Sudanese Community Association of South Australia, community welcoming parties for new arrivals(see figures next page), and traditional marriage ceremonies. These were important field sites for me as they are sites and activities where the Southern Sudanese interact socially with Australians as well as with other Sudanese. Figure 1: Traditional welcoming party/celebration for newly arrived members of community from refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda (Photo by Author, August 2006) 47

63 Another reason why I chose to carry out part of my fieldwork at the MRCSA and ARA is because they are the two settlement organisations best known to the Southern Sudanese refugees resettled in South Australia. This is because almost every Southern Sudanese resettled here has previously received household goods and other services from ARA and MRCSA. For example they have been received at the airport on their arrival, placed into temporary accommodation, and have had their basic resettlement needs assessed and met by MRCSA staff and ARA. As a result, these are the organisations most frequently visited by my informants in their search for services to enhance their resettlement. Consequently, these organisations are good sites to engage in an ethnographical study of Southern Sudanese. However, most importantly these organisations were willing to accept me to do voluntary work with them, and the management and the staff of these organisations fully supported me during my volunteering and fieldwork. The Sudanese Community Association of South Australia Branch Inc At the time of my fieldwork, the office of the Sudanese Community Association of South Australia was at the time of my fieldwork located at 16 King Street in the city of Prospect and it was one of my ethnographic sites. The Association has been regarded by the Sudanese in general and the Southern Sudanese in particular as their unifying symbol in South Australia, and it comprises diverse ethnic groupings from Sudan. It is worth noting that most of the Sudanese refugees in South Australia consist mostly of ethnic groups from Southern Sudan. Like many other communities and cultural associations/organisations deemed to represent the whole, the Sudanese Community Association is constantly struggling to find a common ground among its diverse ethnic groups. But despite this, the association is viewed as the voice of the people of Sudan in South Australia and a place to go to and discuss issues pertaining to Sudanese refugees 48

64 resettled in South Australia as well as to discuss issues of concern back in Sudan. However, its strength and effectiveness is impeded by its lack of resources and of effective personnel to manage it because most of its elected office bearers are volunteers and are doing other work to earn a living. Hence it has tended to be merely a talking shop for issues facing its members, be they political, social, cultural or economic problems from within or outside of the organisation. This is evident from the fact that on several occasions during my fieldwork it had urgently called several meetings to discuss, find or suggest solutions to some of the issues facing the community. However, not any of these meetings and the suggested solutions provided any tangible outcomes to address the issues of concern. But the association had a form of moral authority over its members. For example, it has been instrumental in galvanising financial, moral and other resources whenever death struck any of its members. Whenever this occurs, it calls an urgent meeting of its various ethnic group members and requests each community to contribute money to the family of the deceased. In addition to this, most members willingly take food and drinks to the family. The association also encourages its members to visit the bereaved family to lend their moral and physical support. The financial contributions made by members are used towards meeting the cost of the funeral, burial, electric/gas and telephone bills and other related expenses incurred during the time of grieving. The food and drinks are shared by those who come to the family to demonstrate their sympathy, support and solidarity. Hence, on these issues the Association has successfully counted on the support of it members and this enables many families who have lost their dear ones to cover a proportion of the expenses incurred by the death. These actions socially and psychologically assist grieving families to cope with the loss of their family members. 49

65 Migrant Resource Centre of South Australia (MRCSA) As I have indicated earlier, the MRCSA is one of the peak settlement service providers contracted and mainly funded by the Commonwealth Government to deliver on arrival general settlement services to diverse refugee and migrant groups from various countries arriving in South Australia. The Southern Sudanese are among the refugees receiving the wide range of settlement services and programs (visit for detail) that the MRCSA delivers. The MRCSA was established in 1979 as a community based and independent charitable organisation. Currently its head office is situated in a beautiful heritage listed building at 59 King William Street in the city of Adelaide. It has outreach offices and community based facilities in the Adelaide metropolitan area and in regional South Australia to cater for the needs and the changing patterns of settlement locations of the newly arrived refugees and migrants. Amongst its roles, the MRCSA receives refugees at the airport, takes them to on-arrival accommodation, and assesses their settlement needs to ensure that they have access to a set of available services. It also refers clients to other organisations for services which it does not deliver. Additionally, the MRCSA organises community volunteers to provide interpreter services, to orient new arrivals to the city environment including shopping centres, and to take the new arrivals to schools and English learning centres to register for studies. As part of orientation to urban modern life, the volunteers and the staff often teach new arrivals who have not used and operated modern appliances and amenities before such as microwave ovens, gas/electric cookers and washing machines how to use and operate them. Staff and volunteers also assist them to open bank accounts and teach them how to use the ATM machines. The MRCSA also offers free migration advice and organises 50

66 various information sessions to inform new arrivals about life in Australia, the available settlement services, and how to access them. It is worth noting that the MRCSA employs people from diverse refugee and migrant backgrounds; in fact, the multicultural nature of its employees makes it a preferred and favoured settlement organisation. This is attested by the crowding of refugees, mainly from Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, South-eastern and Eastern European countries, in front of its main office and in the reception area or in interview rooms during working days either waiting to be serviced, or to meet friends who are being serviced. Thus, during my period of voluntary work at the MRCSA, one of the staff told me that the MRCSA is a multicultural village because it employs its staff from several newly arrived and emerging refugee and migrant communities in South Australia. Australia Refugee Association (ARA) ARA s office was located at the time of my fieldwork at 304 Henley Beach Road at Underdale, a suburb in western metropolitan Adelaide. Like the MRCSA, its main responsibilities include the provision of diverse settlement services and programs that support and facilitate the settlement of refugees, including the Southern Sudanese, and migrants arriving in South Australia from different countries (for more detail visit The various settlement support services it provides prepare refugees and migrants to re-establish themselves in Australian society with relative ease. ARA also undertakes the assessment of refugee and migrant families or individuals and makes referrals to other organisations for services it does not offer. Additionally, it provides free access to computers, printers and internet services. It is important to note here that during my voluntary work, I have observed that this particular service has daily drawn several Southern Sudanese young people to the organisation to use its 51

67 offerings. ARA also manages an open door centre (help desk) where it receives donations from its friends from the wider Australian community. These donations, which include computers, washing machines, fridges, kitchen utensils, furniture, clothes and other essentials, are then given out by ARA to refugees and migrants who come to the centre to seek any of them. Upon the assessment of each individual or family s needs, ARA then arranges free delivery of the items by one of its staff and or volunteers to the residence of its needy clients. The centre also provides very limited financial assistance to help refugees pay part of their telephone, electricity or gas bills, or to meet any minimal financial emergencies. Other services being delivered by ARA include the provision of limited scholarships to refugees to enable them pay for basic scholastic materials. It also offers advocacy and migration advice to refugees, as well as assisting them to negotiate payable interest free travel loans from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The loans enable them to pay for air travel costs of their family members and friends whom they have sponsored to join them once their visas to Australia have been granted. Most of my informants have benefited significantly from this service. Between 2004 and 2008 ARA had created and maintained two positions for employing two Sudanese settlement officers to deliver various settlement services to their fellow Sudanese refugees in culturally appropriate ways. These settlement officers also easily link newly arrived members to the general Sudanese community and to their respective ethnic communities to enhance and foster their cultural traditions and to reduce incidents of social and cultural isolation. The settlement officers also link members of the general Sudanese community to ARA and to other settlement support organisations and government institutions so that they can access a variety of settlement services that are not available in ARA. 52

68 Field Activities During my fieldwork, the principal methods of my data collection were in-depth structured and unstructured interviews, discussion of research themes and Participant Observation. These methodologies enabled me to grasp some of the daily life experiences and actions that my informants constructed and re-constructed in the various social interactions in a variety of social activities and settings in which they were engaged. I stress here that Participant Observation has essentially led me to be involved in some of the activities in the lives of my informants. By placing myself in those social settings and contexts, I was able to observe, comprehend and record as data in my note book the actions and experiences of my informants. Being in the context of those activities permitted informants to talk easily about how they experience and think about their resettlement in Australia. It also enabled me to ascertain whether my informants do what they say they do or not (see O reilly 2005: 10). At MRCSA and ARA, I carried out the following activities: assisting the casemanagement of clients, assessing their needs, assisting them to search for affordable housing in the internet and in newspapers in suburbs which they prefer, completing application forms for rental accommodation and explaining the terms of tenancy contacts. I assisted them to complete other forms including medical and driver s learner forms, and applications for bank loans. I also assisted some clients to search for jobs on the internet and in newspapers, to write résumés and cover letters, and to interpret English language into Juba Arabic, Kuku, Bari and vice versa for those who were unfamiliar with the English language. In addition to the above services, I assisted clients to negotiate payment of telephone, electricity or gas bills by phone. I similarly provided information in person or over the phone to clients about available settlement services and referred clients to other settlement services. 53

69 Due to the multiplicities of my field sites and as an ethnographer, I had to move amongst several locations and contexts in order to collect adequate data for my thesis. I embedded myself fully in the social activities and practices being undertaken by my informants either within or outside of their homes. In those contexts I was able to record as data my informants current experiences of life in their new society. However, in doing so I do not claim to have studied, observed and recorded in totality every aspect of the activities and practices relevant to my informants resettlement experiences of life in Australia, but I have attempted to do as much as I could given the ethnographic tools, knowledge and techniques I have grained during my years of training as an anthropologist. Home Visitations, Interviews and Participant Observations Home visits were essential to my fieldwork. The visits were arranged according to the time and days in a week that suited my informants. Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evenings were the most preferred time, but any day of the week between 6pm and 9pm was also suitable. This is because during daytime and on week days many Southern Sudanese are either studying or working and could not be found at home during the morning or afternoon. Thus most observations were conducted in homes during weekends between 6pm and 9pm. This has yielded useful data because during this time span, all or most family members were around and I could observe either covertly or overtly significant aspects of their actions and behaviours which were relevant to the themes which this thesis explores. However, I was also aware of the fact that unequal power relationships exist in households and they are likely to make some informants withhold information regarding their relationships when in a company of other members of the household, especially when discussing relationships between spouses and between parents and children when all are present. To overcome this, I negotiated 54

70 additional and separate interview schedules with potential individual informants in the household at time spans she/he saw fit. Also in some other times when situations allowed, I have to discuss issues such as husband-wife relations, performance of domestic chores, baby sitting (childcare) and parent-children relations when driving either of the spouses to shopping, to view rental properties the family wish to rent or when I drive them to pickup children from schools or/and childcare facilities and they were not in the company of other family members. These have equally yielded useful data which should have been otherwise withheld because other family members were around whom informants would not like them to listen to what they were telling me about their relationships. In such environments where they were only with me, I found that they were willing to open up and talk about their relations with relative ease. Participant Observation enabled me to grasp who is doing what, how and why, and later on I followed up these observations with interviews or with discussion with informants. It is worth noting that intense family activities and interactions occur during the above cited span of time where most, if not all, family members were around. It is in these particular times and social contexts that I could observe and hand record data on how informants share food and tea/coffee, watch TV, listen to radios or African traditional or church music, and watch Nigerian films. I could observe and hear what they discuss and why, who does what, why, how and when? In the midst of all this, I had the opportunity to observe and note relationships between husband and wife and parent and children, and aspects of their behaviour and interactions that go with these relations and activities. It was also during home visits that I conducted structured and unstructured interviews and discussions on my research questions with informants, and arranged for the next interviews. Additionally, during home visitations I assisted some informants on 55

71 request by driving them in my car to shopping centres, or to locate and inspect rental accommodation and assist them to complete tenancy applications. While driving informants to shopping centres or to view rental accommodations, I often discussed with them the themes of my thesis and I found that informants would discuss my research questions with greater ease while they were in the car than if I were to discuss the same topics with them in their houses. I also found that while being driven in a car, married informants were more likely to open up and talk in depth about their family relationships, how they perform certain domestic gendered chores but not others and why, their roles and attitudes towards role reversal, as well as how they manage and control family income, than if the interviews or discussions were conducted in the house in the presence of the other spouse or other relatives. This is because each one would not want the other to hear what he/she says about the other. The car environment tends to offer seclusion from being overheard by any one of the family. However, even if they could easily open up in their homes, interviews or discussions in homes were constantly interrupted by phone calls, or children coming to their dads or mums to solicit attention regarding some of their concerns. Home interviews could also be distracted by other family members and visitors, friends or relatives who just walked in without prior notice, a thing regarded as normal in my informants cultures. Social Events At some point in my fieldwork, I attended social activities such as birthdays, Christmas parties (see figure next page) or welcoming parties for newly arrived members of the different Southern Sudanese ethnic groups from refugee camps in Africa. 56

72 Figures 2: The Azande Community and Friends Celebrating Christmas in a Traditional Way in Adelaide South Australia 1 (Photo by Author, 28 December 2006). I also attended traditional marriage ceremonies, traditional dances, funerals and burial ceremonies, and prayers for community members who had died here or of kin who had died in Sudan or in refugee camps in Africa. The kin of the deceased organise funeral prayers for the lost soul of their dead relatives. With my informants permission, I followed them to social events including meetings organised by the Sudanese community association, and to information sessions with service providers to observe and record what they did in those social events. In these situations I attempted to record most of what I considered as relevant data for my thesis. By participating in or attending those social activities in which my informants were involved, I managed to establish close relationships, and created trust and rapport with my informants which were crucial for getting reliable and valid data (see Gold 1997). 1 This Christmas celebration took place on 28 December 2006 instead of 25December 2006 because the Azande did not find a hall to hire on the Christmas day. 57

73 Locating the Informants, Gaining Access and Trust According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics census for 2006, there are about 1586 Sudanese resettled in South Australia who arrived between 1991 and 2006 (Space Time Research Pty Ltd 2007). Most Sudanese in South Australia live in the western, northern and north eastern suburbs in the Local Government Areas of Port Adelaide Enfield, Charles Sturt, West Torrens, Campbell Town, Salisbury, Tea Tree Gully, Marion, Norwood, Payneham and St. Peters, Mitcham and Prospect (refer to the map next page). A few others are scattered among the city council areas within the Adelaide metropolitan area. The majority of the Southern Sudanese refugees resettled in South Australia live in private rental housing, but a few live in houses offered by the Housing Trust of South Australia (now Housing SA) and Lutheran community housing. It is however worth noting that given the current state of resettlement of refugees from Sudan, fewer refugees have arrived between 2006 and 2008 as the government decided to reduce the intake of Africans, and particularly Sudanese refugees because of their alleged inabilities to integrate into Australian society (see pages ). 58

74 Figure 3: Map of Metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia Map drawn by Christine Crothers (2008), Department of Geographical and Environmental Studies University of Adelaide on the request of the author. During my fieldwork, I identified some of my informants while volunteering with MRCSA and ARA, and others in meetings organised by the Sudanese Community Association as well as in various social events organised by separate Southern Sudanese ethnic groups. When I approached a Southern Sudanese person, I explained to him/her my research topic and the processes involved. I then asked his/her willingness to participate in the research by becoming an informant. If she/he agreed to participate, a 59

75 meeting was then arranged at a time that was suitable to the person. Often I used my first arranged meeting/contact with informants as an opportunity to explain again in detail my research topic and interest, issues of confidentiality and informed consent, and the nature of the information sheet, and I would reaffirm my request for their willingness to participate in the research. That was also an opportunity to start building a relationship favourable to the establishment of trust and good rapport, as these act as foundations on which Participant Observation and in-depth structured and unstructured interviews are built. In the second meeting I always checked once again if the person was still willing to participate before asking the person to sign two informed consent forms; after the person has signed, I then signed both forms and gave one to the person to keep. It is at this time that I started to interview and to observe my informants should the situation and time allow; if not, another meeting was arranged. Often I had to follow up any arranged interview or meeting with phone calls a day or two before the visit to confirm that the informant would be available. Often the interviews and some observations took place in informants houses. Although both my informants and I are Southern Sudanese, the issue of trust is paramount in my process of collecting the data. In researching refugees and forced migrants, the notion of trust is problematic because the situations that produced refugees and forced migrants are clouded by a lack of trust caused by a sense of betrayal by others, including their own kin (Voutira and Harrell-Bond in Daniel and Knudsen 1995: ; Schwartz 1997; McGovern 1998; Geuijen 1997, and Harrell-Bond & Voutira 1992). Their refugee experiences have made it harder for refugees to ascertain who is trustworthy and who is not. On the issue of trust, Bisharat (1997: 664) highlights how trust among refugees can be shattered by systemic violence against them, and the 60

76 result is an installed persistent mistrust of others, even when conditions that foster the distrust no longer prevail. Hence, the openness between researchers and researched necessary to collect ethnographic data lies at the centre of ethnography. As an ethnographer in the field I often adopt a collector s attitude to information by noting observations, hand recording interviews, and listening to information being conveyed as well as overhearing remarks being made while in the field. I decided to leave the fieldwork when I felt that I had enough data to make sense of what I had noted, listened to and observed, as well as having established that I had exhausted the information relevant to my research themes. Selecting Informants Informants are selected because of their availability and willingness to participate in the research, and their being people who define themselves as refugees from Southern Sudan. Some informants were initially contacted and selected when I was doing voluntary work with the MRCSA and ARA and some were approached in meetings, social events, after prayers meetings in churches and through home visits. Other informants were located and selected through a snowball method. All interviews and observations were hand recorded. Short video clips and photographs of informants in social events were also taken by digital camera to augment the hand written interviews and observations. The target of this study is Southern Sudanese who have lived in Australia for a period of not less than six months. This is because I think that those who have lived for less than six months may have not grasped fully the real life situations and experiences in Australia within that period. I would like to state here that to protect the identity of all my informants, I have given them pseudo names and places instead of using the real names of informants and places. 61

77 I preferred informants aged 18 years and above. This is because I assumed that those who are under 18 years at the time of my fieldwork may not have a clear enough memory of their ways of life in Southern Sudan, their experiences of the war, or of their life in refugee camp in countries of refuge, and so would be unable to compare those experiences with their current life while resettling in Australia. Presumably, most of the Southern Sudanese under the age of 18 years were born in a refuge outside Sudan and hence the experiences of life in Sudan and of the war might have eluded them. My being a Southern Sudanese and a refugee myself made access to informants a lot easier as they considered me to be one of them. That was a resource for me to draw on during home visitations. Also my ability to speak local Juba Arab was an indispensable asset as almost all Southern Sudanese do speak the local Juba Arabic which is widely spoken throughout Southern Sudan. This allowed me to engage easily in discussions with informants in Juba Arabic without needing any interpreter. Due to these factors I was able to meet with my informants in their homes and to assist them in shopping, search advertised rental accommodation and drive them to view advertised rental property. Reflections on my Position as an Insider Researcher In the coming paragraphs I will discuss my experience of fieldwork as a refugee researching fellow refugees, as well as a Southern Sudanese researching fellow Southern Sudanese away from our original home. I will discuss my position as an insider researcher and how the dynamics of the relationships entailed in this position during the fieldwork process were negotiated through culturally bounded contexts. To understand the complexities imbued in doing fieldwork as an insider, and particularly as 62

78 a refugee researching fellow refugees, the literature tends to suggest that research methodologies and how they are applied in the field are two different things. In doing fieldwork on my own people, the Southern Sudanese in South Australia, I experienced both the advantages and the disadvantages of being an insider, and the challenges of balancing methodological knowledge with cultural knowledge and seeking to maximise both. Although I was an insider, some informants still viewed me as an outsider. Each insider and outsider position carries with it certain advantages and disadvantages. This confirms recent discussions about insider and outsider positions which suggest that these positions are complex. These discussions recognise that the dividing line between insider and outsider researcher is not clearly marked (Anderson and Jack 1991; Chaudhry 1997 & Lee 1999). It is often perceived that when researchers and informants share the same culture, the field offers a conducive ground for gaining access, nurturing rapport, and asking culturally appropriate questions. I claim that my fieldwork, which was conducted away from my original home among my fellow Southern Sudanese, created mutually perceived homogeneity between my informants and me, an insider researcher, and also created a sense of community which further enhanced trust and openness throughout the research process. This is similar to Aguilar s (1981) suggestion that when a researcher researches within his/her own culture, there will exist an immediate perceptive bond of brotherhood/sisterhood within the field between the researcher and the researched. This was clearly reflected by most of my informants at the time of my fieldwork. My being a PhD student and a Southern Sudanese was perceived by most informants as likely to produce a result which would be rewarding to the Sudanese community here, and it was an incentive for many to participate in the research. They regarded my educational qualification (if achieved) as a community 63

79 achievement or asset, which produced a statement like It is good that our own Southern Sudanese is studying at that level because when you finish your studies you would be able to help us, which I often heard from my informants and other Southern Sudanese during my fieldwork. This was a kind of reward from members of the Southern Sudanese communities for my being involved in what they perceived as an action which could benefit the Southern Sudanese as a collective group. It was interesting that the cultural value attached to my education shaped the context of my relationships with informants in the field, and thus my being a Southern Sudanese united me with the community whose members I researched. My fieldwork was also enriched by my ability to understand culturally bounded phrases, local proverbs, nonverbalised answers conveyed with hand gestures and facial expressions, because I did not need someone to interpret this communication for me. My background in the language (local Juba Arabic), which most of the Southern Sudanese and I commonly speak and understand well, made my informants feel free and to speak at ease. Additionally, having no interpreter was also an assurance for some informants that no other person would know what they had told me. However, in the practical world of ethnographic fieldwork there is a good bit of slippage and fluidity between these insider/outsider positions. Although I am a Southern Sudanese, my position as an insider researcher was not free of challenges. Some informants perceived me to have undergone the same experiences as they had and were reluctant to be engaged in discussing their resettlement experiences. Some of the informants often said to me, you are a refugee like us and you know everything you have the same experience as we do and so why do you ask us? What more do you want us to tell you? Confronted by such questions, I had to explain to them that although we had faced similar conditions, it is very unlikely that we had experienced the same 64

80 conditions in the same ways because each one of us is different, and so would experience the same situations differently. It is that difference that I would like to know about. There were also a few educated Southern Sudanese who envied my PhD candidature and the scholarship I had received. I overheard them whisper to themselves alleging that a member of my ethnic group who had been a long time employee of the University of Adelaide had negotiated my admission and scholarship award and that the person had intentionally hidden information about such an opportunity from them because they were of a different ethnic group. This focus on my ethnic group separated me from being a Southern Sudanese and set me apart from this small category of educated Southern Sudanese from other ethnic groups. As a result, some were unwilling to participate in the research. However, after I had explained to them how I got my admission and my scholarship, I encouraged them to apply and try their luck. Having understood that no person from my ethnic group working in the university had negotiated my admission and scholarship, most then willingly agreed to participate in the research. Challenges Encountered in the Field In the next paragraphs I will highlight the challenges I encountered during the fieldwork. One of these challenges was that some informants saw the signing of the information consent form as taking away their anonymity and placing them physically in the research. This tended to create concern about the confidentiality of the information they provided. Informants thought that by signing the information consent form they had given away their right to withdraw from the study at any time. They perceived the information consent as only protecting me but not them. To overcome 65

81 this, I had to explain meticulously again and again why it was important for them to sign the information consent form and assure them that their signatures also protected them from anything that I would inappropriately do to them, or any behaviour from me in the course of my fieldwork that they might regard as endangering them because, should this happen, they would be able to call my supervisors or the secretary of the Human Research Ethics Committee and complain to them and appropriate action would be taken against me. To emphasise this point, I had to highlight the phone numbers of my supervisors and that of the Secretary of Human Research Ethics Committee on the information consent form. That assured them that above me there were authorities they could call upon at any time if they believed that I had done any thing which they regarded as inappropriate. That has worked out well and has eliminated their concerns about signing the information consent form. During fieldwork there was a major issue concerning informants keeping arranged appointments; many arranged and agreed upon field visits or interviews had to be cancelled, postponed and renegotiated from time to time. On the other hand, some interviews had to be started very late after the agreed time because informants were either busy doing other chores in the family at the appointed time or were not available at home at that particular time. I had to be patient; without being always patient and willing to wait, I should have not been able to collect the data I needed for this thesis. However, the long waiting periods were overcome by the friendliness and welcoming attitudes of my informants when they welcomed me into their homes. During my home visits, any person in the house would welcome me, even if the person I was going to interview was not at home at that particular time. I was always made to feel at home; and once an interview or observation had commenced, they always yielded satisfactory results. 66

82 It is worth reiterating that as MRCSA and ARA deliver the bulk of the settlement services to Southern Sudanese and link them to mainstream services thus the two organisations were my essential contact points for informants and they have provided a context for me to connect easily with Southern Sudanese who often come for their services. Hence doing voluntary work in those organisations offered a process to engage with potential informants and of establishing trust between them and me. The ethnographic methods and tools I employed during my fieldwork significantly contributed to my better understanding of the resettlement experiences of my informants through the relevant data I collected. My flexibility in the field and my adaptation of the methods and techniques to conditions in the field allowed other relevant issues to come up during the interviews and observations. The methods and techniques used also offered better rapport and gave me the ability to probe for more detailed information. Flexibility in the methods and techniques used enabled me to adopt, modify and clarify the wordings of the issues from which relevant data were sought and also allowed informants to tell me the required information in ways that were meaningful to them. As indicated earlier, during the fieldwork, my position as a researcher and an insider was not challenge free although it has facilitated my accessibility, the establishment of rapport and my engagement with informants to discuss important issues in their experiences of war, life as refugees and their current life of resettlement in Australia. In the coming Chapter I will briefly describe the people who collectively prefer to call themselves as Southern Sudanese. I will also describe their historical backgrounds and specifically the decades of war and related conditions that had led to their massive forcefully displacement from their homeland to refugee camps in exile and consequent resettlement of some in Australia and in other countries. The Chapter also highlights my 67

83 informant s experiences of life in refugee camps or in exile in other countries and shows how those experiences collectively impacted on their resettlement and integration abilities in Australia. How the Data were Analysed As indicated earlier, the data for this thesis were collected through ethnographic methods which resulted in large amounts of textual data (mainly qualitative data) derived form of interviews, Participant Observational, field notes and to some extent photographs and video clips. Although it was difficult to conduct data analysis along side data collection, I have at certain times attempted to do so when time allowed. This offers flexibility necessary to permit some research questions to be refined further and new avenues of inquiries to be expanded. That has helped shape the ongoing process of my data collection. It is worth noting that I have not used any computer packages to assist in the analysis of the data. After the collection, the data are explored inductively using rigorous and systematic content analysis to generate and identity analytical categories and to describe and explain social phenomena (actions) as they emerge from the data. In doing so I read and reread the data in order to identify themes, patterns and categories. This centred on particular incidents, types of observed behaviors and actions, phrases used, key issues, concepts and others in which the data can be examined and referenced to. This is done by drawing on the questions derived from the aims and objectives of the research as well as issues raised by informants themselves during the course of the fieldwork as well as experiences and views that recur throughout the data. The result of these is a detailed catalogue, which labels the data into manageable mass for subsequent retrieval and exploration. 68

84 Through this coherent and systematic approach, all the data significant to each category are identified, examined and compared with the rest of the relevant data so that analytical categories could be established. This is an inclusive process in which more related categories are put together to mirror as many of the nuances in the data as possible. Those categories were further refined and condensed by grouping related categories together (data rearranged according to appropriate part of the thematic category to which they related). This allows for the selection of key themes or categories through copying and pasting so that like or related themes are put together. This helps to map out the range of phenomena which provide explanations and interpretations that emerged from the data themselves for any findings. 69

85 CHAPTER THREE THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHERN SUDAN: HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND THE EXPERIENCES OF WAR AND DISPLACEMENT Introduction In Chapter Two I described my fieldwork, field sites and how I collected the data for this thesis. I also indicated where most of my informants - the Southern Sudanese -live in South Australia, how I selected them and what methods and techniques were used for collecting the data. In this chapter I will offer a brief description of the people who collectively call themselves Southern Sudanese or Junubin. To complement my fieldwork data, my perspective in this chapter has been informed by contemporary and classic ethnographies on some of the Southern Sudanese ethnic groups including ethnographies and other related work produced by Hutchinson (1996), Jok ( 2001 & 2004), James (1979 & 1988), Lesch, (1998), Hassan (1985), Ninan (1983), Evans- Pritchard (1937; 1940; 1948, 1951; 1969; 1971; & 1979 ), Stigand (1968), Huntingford (1953), Seligman and Seligman (1932), Ryle (1982), Lienhardt, (1958, 1954, & 1961), Wai (1973), and Deng (1972). These studies provide detailed ethnographic descriptions of the people of Southern Sudan and highlight their ways of life. I will also briefly describe the historical background of the Southern Sudanese, especially during the recent decades of civil war between and , that resulted in massive displacement of Southern Sudanese from their homeland and which in turn led to their eventual resettlement in western countries including Australia (see Idris 2001; Hutchinson 1996; Suliman 1992; Deng 1995; Yongo-Bure 1993; Collins 1961; Alier 1972; Beshir 1975 & 1968; Peterson 2000; Lesch 1998; Johnson 2003; Jok 2001). These studies discuss how the war and related conditions adversely 70

86 affected the life of the Southern Sudanese. The war and the associated conditions hindered access to education and economic opportunities, healthcare and others services. In this chapter I will examine my informants experiences of life in refugee camps and in other urban cities in exile in order to ascertain whether those experiences enhanced or impeded their resettlement in Australia. The adverse effects of the war which informants endured negatively influenced their resettlement capabilities in Australia. Any attempt to evade their socio-economic and historical backgrounds and experiences before their resettlement in Australia, and not putting them in the context of their current lives in Australia, will obscure any understanding of why some Southern Sudanese have more difficulties than others in resettling in the Australian society. I contend here that war and displacement had severely destroyed the institutional structures (social, economic, political, administrative, civil, educational, legal and so forth) in Southern Sudan and, as a result, moving from Southern Sudan to refugee camps with barely non existing structures and then finally resettling in Australia - a society with highly developed and sophisticated institutional structures - presents daunting life experiences to the majority of my informants. Brief Ethnographic Description of the Southern Sudanese It is vital to emphasis here that although some of the ethnic groups in Southern Sudan have figured in anthropological literature, there has been no ongoing research on them carried out by trained anthropologists. Much of what we know about them today comes from data collected by inconsistent methods by journalists, humanitarian workers and travelers and what has been produced was probably based on impressions and prejudices rather than on anthropological methodologies and knowledge. Hence I feel 71

87 obliged to provide to my readers a brief ethnographic account of the people who collectively called themselves Southern Sudanese or Junubin. This is not however to deny the useful anthropological scholarship and other relevant work produced by Hutchinson (1996), Jok (2001), Evans-Pritchard (1937, 1940, 1951, 1969, & 1971), Stigand (1968), Huntingford (1953), Seligman and Seligman (1932), Ryle (1982), Lienhardt, (1958 & 1961), Chili (1995), Nanan (1983) and Deng (1972) among others on some ethnic groups in Southern Sudan. In this thesis the term ethnic group is defined as a group of individuals who collectively nurture a strongly belief of belonging to one common ancestry because they share customs, traditions, habits, religious beliefs, language, and territorial attachment as well as identifying themselves with one another. This is similar to Hall s (1995: 181) definition of ethnicity as a very strong well-bounded vision of cultural identity that emerges wherever shared activities and systems of meanings in one place by some people are strengthened by shared kinship and blood-ties. Hall further indicates that cultural identity tends to be verifiable by certain observable shared physical characteristics and features of a given group in question; shared physical characteristics and features are strongly seen as evidences of belonging to the group. Furthermore, according to Hall, ethnicity is also strongly bounded to a group s sense of belonging to a place, which is historically and continuously constructed over time and hence unifies a group of people. This collective of people is a segment of a large society but they are easily identifiable from the larger group because they possess certain distinctive cultural traits and a common set of traditions which they practice but which the large segment does not. Hence, they are perceived by the large segment and by themselves as being different. However, I would like to recognise that the boundaries that mark one ethnic group from 72

88 the others are not fixed and are more or less permeable to members from each group. Therefore, although members of a particular ethnic group are assumed to be biologically and culturally similar, in practice this is not the case because of the permeability of those boundaries. The fluidity of these boundaries becomes apparent when people from different ethnic groups intermarry and the resultant children exhibit some attributes, such as skin complexion or hair type and so on, which are different from those of the members of one group. Here is a current and typical example. A Dinka man who resettled in South Australia married a Middle Eastern woman and produced Dinka children (patrilineal descent) with light or brown skin complexion and wavy hair as opposed to the Dinka s dark skin complexion and short hair. The Southern Sudanese are people of African descent living in the southern part of the republic of the Sudan, called the Southern Sudan or South Sudan (Wai 1973: 7). According to Gore (2002), Southern Sudan is about 648,052km (322,000 square miles). It covers about 26% of the 2,500,000 kilometer square (967,500 square miles) total land area of Sudan (refer to the figure next page). Politically, Southern Sudan is currently divided into 10 states and each state has its own government and a parliament or legislative assembly, but most powers are centralised in the Federation Government in Khartoum in Northern Sudan. 73

89 Figure 4: Map of the Republic of Sudan Before it was Redivided into twenty-six states: The Areas that comprise the Southern Sudan are numbered 19, 20 and 21 and currently comprise ten states. Most Southern Sudanese are adherents of traditional religions; many have been converted to Christianity and fewer to Islam before and during the war. The principle cities of Southern Sudan are Juba (the capital), Malakal and Wau. These cities are not highly urbanised. The people of Southern Sudan formed about 34% of the Sudanese population (Lesch 1998: 17). It is estimated that over 83% of the population of Southern Sudan lives in rural areas and only 15% lives in urban areas (Gore 2002). Southern Sudan has one of the highest illiteracy rates unemployment and underdevelopment in the world. It is estimated that about 70% of the population is illiterate due to the impact of colonialism and the policies of successive Sudanese governments toward Southern Sudan and the many years of war in Southern Sudan which have impeded advances in education and economic development in that part of the world. I would like to stress at this point that it is not possible to provide an accurate population figure of Southern 74

90

91 belong to different ethnic groups, their cultures bear some similarities and more importantly they strongly believe that they belong to one race, Black Africans, who occupy the same geographical region, the Southern Sudan. The Southern Sudanese as a people comprise many ethnic groups. According to Gore (2002), most scholars have suggested that there are over 200 tribal (ethnic) groups living in Southern Sudan. Some of these groups have been known to anthropologists through studies by some scholars including Hutchinson (1996) and Evans-Pritchard between the late 1930s and the late 1960s. These studies offer substantial ethnographic descriptions of some of the ethnic groups living in Southern Sudan, including the Nuer, the Shilluk, Azande and others. As I have stated earlier, there has been no on-going research on these ethnic groups and hence I am forced to revisit relatively old ethnographies. I acknowledge that since then several changes have occurred in the cultural, social, economic, and political lives of the Southern Sudanese and those changes have directly affected and influenced their ways of lives. However, some of the ethnographies exemplified by Evans-Pritchard s work are regarded as classic ethnographies written about the Nuer and other groups in Southern Sudan and they remain relevant in understanding some aspects of the Nuer cultural and social lives up to the present. With respect to classifying the people of Southern Sudan into groups, Gore (2002) indicates that there has been no consistent criterion used by scholars to classify the over 200 tribes (most of my informants here use tribes and ethnic groups interchangeably but African scholarship favours the use of ethnic groups because the term tribe is believed to carry negative colonial associations) living in Southern Sudan, but he shows that the most commonly used criterion has been one that broadly classifies the Southern Sudanese according to their cultural and linguistic similarities. According to this 76

92 classification, there are three broad groups, namely the Nilotics, the Nilo-Hamites and the Sudanic (Hassan 1985: 21-30, Lesch 1998: 17, Wai 1972: 9-10). Some members of these groups have resettled in Australia as refugees under the Australian Government s Humanitarian Resettlement Program. In South Australia they include Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Ma di, Bari, Acholi, Pojulu, Muru, Anuak, Kakwa, Otuho (Lotuho), Lokoya, Kuku, Azande, Nyangwara, Baka, and Mundari among others. Members of these groups in South Australia, however, differ in size: some are larger than others; the smallest could be only a family or two while others like the Dinka, who form the majority, are in hundreds or thousands. The Nilotics The term Nilotics or nilotes is used to describe a group of people who exhibit certain resemblances of cultures, means of livelihood, physical features, and language. The term was formerly used without discrimination, with the exception of the Arabs, to describe all the people living along the banks of the river Nile, its tributaries and distributaries. Generally, the Nilotics live in Upper Nile, Unity, Jonglei, Lakes, Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal and Warab states in Southern Sudan. They inhabit the central and flood plains of the river Nile. Some Nilotics live in Eastern and Central Equatoria states (Acholi, Lango, the Pari (Lokoro) of Lafon and probably the Mundari). They are agro-pastoralists whose livelihood mainly depends on livestock husbandry. Traditionally they are similar in their livelihood and in physical traits such as the possession of facial tribal markings (tattoos) and their height. These features have served to distinguish them from the Nilo-Hamites and the Sudanic groups who do not possess these traits. There is a widely held view among the non Nilotics that the Nilotics are noticeably taller than any other ethnic groups in Sudan who often regard themselves 77

93 as short to medium in height, but this view has not found any scientific support in the scientific literature (Chili 1995). The main ethnic groups comprising the Nilotics are the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk, Acholi, Lango, the Pari and probably the Mundari. In this group, members of the Dinka, the Nuer, the Shilluk, Mundari and the Acholi are among the Sudanese refugees resettled in Australia. The traditional livelihood of the Dinka, Nuer, Shilluk and the Mundari is mainly based on cattle rearing, supplemented by limited subsistence agriculture, fishing and hunting. Cattle ownership is essential to their culture. Cattle are the centre of social status and prestige and in their society prestige is weighed by the numbers and quality of the cattle one owned (Lienhardt 1958; Evans-Pritchard 1940 & 1969). Livestock such as goats, sheep and particularly cattle are the medium of exchange whether in payment of debts, blood price, marriage, sacrifices or in performance of other rituals (Lienhardt 1961). Cattle also provide them with a variety of nourishments (milk, blood, meat, butter) and other material (hides used for sleeping on, as footwear and shields, and bones used locally to produce buttons). Even though the Niolotics have lost most of their cattle to the war and infestation by cattle diseases, their concepts of wealth and property are still centred on cattle and cattle remain pivotal in their socio-cultural, religious and economic life in Sudan. Thus during my fieldwork some Nilotics have told me that they have to send some money home to kin to restock lost family cattle and other livestock. The value attached to cattle and the roles cattle play in their society in Southern Sudan permeate every aspect of their social and cultural life and relationships within and outside their groups. However, among the Nilotics, the Acholi are not agropastoralists but derive their livelihood mainly from crop husbandry. The Nilotics society is an egalitarian and classless society but rigidly patriarchal; descent is traced through the father. Hence it is important that each male must marry to 78

94 continue the lineage. In the family, men expect women to do for them several aspects of domestic services but they monopolise the decision making process in the family. Their society expects individuals to be generous to others and like any other ethnic groups in Southern Sudan, social relationships among them are deeply rooted in sharing, reciprocity and strong extended family values. It is obligatory to help family members in need and this is demonstrated by my informants financial remittances to family members back home. Kinship structures are extremely important and bloodlines are broadened to others members believed to have descended from the same ancestry (members of the same clan). The livelihood and behaviour of the Nilotics is very much influenced by the ecology of their land. Unlike any other ethnic group in Southern Sudan, the ecology of the Nuer and Dinka homeland necessitates semi-annual movements between relatively wet seasons and dry seasons. The Nuer and the Dinka have their permanent and temporary settlements scattered across their territories (Hutchinson 1996: 22; Howell 1989; Deng 1972; Leinhardt 1958). During the wet season, they settle on high grounds to avoid floods, and in the dry season they move to lower grounds and settle in temporary camps along the river Nile and its tributaries and distributaries where water, fish and pasture are in abundance. Till today, the combination of these seasonal movements and their pastoral interests have overwhelmingly affected their livelihood, their political and social relationships, as well as their relationships with their environment and neighbouring ethnic groups (see Abbink 2000: 82; James 1979 & 1988; Evans-Pritchard 1951; Hutchinson 1996, Jok 2001). It is evident that the collective function of obtaining for themselves the necessities of life from the same scarce resources, as well as protecting themselves from outside threats, is widespread among the Nilotics. They are, however, socially excitable people who culturally pride themselves with the image of 79

95 courageous warriors. It is conventionally acceptable in their society for a person to put right any wrong committed against him/her. But it is also not uncommon to seek the support of kin, tribesmen or friends in a fight or when there is a threat of it. However, like any other society, the Nilotics ways of life and society have been changing from within or by changes which have been forced on them by war and other conditions. They have been exposed to outside influences and they too have been trying to influence their niegbhours, for example the Nuer relationships with their neighbours Uduk and others (James 1988). Hutchinson (1996) ethnography, Nuer Dilemmas, coping with money, war and the state offers an insightful knowledge about the Nuer and how their society and way of life have been changing due to war, access to arms, migration to northern Sudan and exposure to money from paid labour and other financial activities. The Nilo-Hamites Another group of people living in Southern Sudan are the Nilo-Hamites found in the Central and Eastern Equatoria and in the Upper Nile state in Southern Sudan. This group mainly consists of the Bari-speaking group, namely the Bari, Kakwa, Pojulu, Anyagwara, Mundari, Kuku, Pojulu, Anyagwara, Mundari, Lulubo, and Lugwara, the Otuho (Lotuko), the Anuak, the Murle, the Didinga, and the Toposa. The Bari-speaking group speaks one language with different dialects and so they communicate and understand one another fairly well. Some members of this group have been resettled in South Australia as refugees. Unlike the Nilotics, the Nilo-Hamites are sedentary subsistence farmers and like most Southern Sudanese, they live in small villages scatted in rural areas. However, in recent years young people have been increasingly moving to towns in search of employment 80

96 and better social services. The traditional economy of this group is mainly based on subsistence mixed farming. They keep livestock on a small scale for supplementing their diet, but mostly as a socio-economic investment. They also fish and hunt. Notably, livestock are used as bride-wealth in marriages and in other social events such as sacrifices, rituals, celebrations of marriage, child naming and funerals (Huntingford, 1953, also see Stigand, 1968 & Ninan, 1986). The Sudanic The third group of the people of Southern Sudan is the Sudanic group. This group mainly live in Eastern and Western Equator states, but others also live in Northern and Western Bahr el Ghazal states. The Sudanic group includes the Azande, Muru, Ma di, Baka, Mundu, Avokaya, Makraka, Bongo, Bagirmi, and Balanda. The Azande have a light brown skin complexion in contrast with the Nilotics and the Nilo-Hamites who have a dark skin complexion. In this group, the Azande, Ma di, Muru and Baka have some of their members resettled in South Australia. Unlike the Azande, who have been ethnographically well studied by Evans-Pritchard (1971), it is hard to find literature on the others in this group. The Reasons Which Forced Refugees to Leave Their Country of Origin In the coming paragraphs I will describe the historical background of Southern Sudanese, especially the recent decades of civil wars that led to their massive displacement and eventual resettlement in western countries including Australia. I will also highlight the key root causes of the civil war in Southern Sudan which were a complex mixture of political, socio-economic, cultural, and religious factors. I will show how the two civil wars between 1955 and 1972 and between 1983 and 2005 have severely affected the lives of my informants. I will highlight their experiences of life in 81

97 refugee camps and in refuges in other urban cities in order to illustrate in later chapters how their experiences of war, exile and refugee life before resettlement in Australia have impacted on their resettlement in Australia. It is argued that the classic explanation of migrations using push-pull factors, chain, circular or career migration, which better describe varying degrees of motivation, destinations and timing, offers little understanding of the complex phenomena that produce massive refugee population movements worldwide. Legally, the 1951 United Nation Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees define a refugee as: a person owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of particular group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself to the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his/her former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. (NPC. in Jupp 1994: 8) Refugees worldwide are products of enduring civil strikes/wars, generalised violence, persecution, drought, famine, disease, and repressive and marginalising regimes; the Southern Sudanese refugees who have resettled in Australia are no exception to these. These factors collectively forced them to leave their countries of birth in search of safety elsewhere. But notwithstanding the collaborative force of these factors which drove refugees from their homes, refugee movement has become a global, geographic, socio-economic, and political issue. The enduring quest of refugees for protection and safety has been downgraded to see them merely as fortune seekers. It is essential to note here that in addition to war, economic hardship, sharp increases in government debt and the collapse of traditional socio-economic sectors, partly due to neo-liberal economic policies and globalisation, the policies of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and 82

98 the World Bank have equally caused enormous suffering to citizens in poor countries by making them unable to afford to pay for their very basic needs. These in turn have forced many citizens to leave home in search of survival elsewhere. Thus, the former factors and the later policies are intertwined and hence one factor alone is not sufficient to produce a massive movement of refugees. For instance, economic hardships caused by neo-liberal economic policies could trigger civil strikes or wars in a country causing massive refugee movements. Similarly, although globalisation is perceived as a carrier of development, it however tends to weaken, submerge or wipe out local economies and other local initiatives as they become unable to compete locally with international firms; the result is marginalisation and probably civil strife, despair and war. Also the International Monetary Fund (IMF), with its unpopular structural adjustment programs in exchange for loans given to poor nations, recommends cuts in spending on social services and other basic societal needs. This could lead to poverty, marginalisation and perhaps civil disobedience, despair and war which in turn would cause unprecedented hardships to citizens in poor countries, thus forcing them to leave their countries in search of protection and a better life in other countries. Root Causes of the Two Civil Wars in Southern Sudan To understand why Sudanese have recently been resettled in Australia and other western countries, it is important to revisit Sudanese history in search of answers to the question, why have there been two successive civil wars in Southern Sudan since the colonial rulers left Sudan? Revisiting Sudanese history answers this question and illuminates the political, military, economic, religious, and socio-cultural upheavals which have occurred in Sudan since the colonial period. It is essential to emphasise here that Sudan is ethnically and culturally one of the most diverse countries in Africa. It comprises different ethnic groups with their cultural diversities and multiplicities of religious 83

99 beliefs. But these cultural diversities and multiplicities of religious beliefs have combined with social and economic deprivation to make Sudan one of the most socially, economically and politically unstable countries in Africa. Sudan s different ethnic or tribal groups, with their diverse cultures and multiple religious beliefs, have been its curse rather than its blessing as it has been unable to accommodate them adequately. Thus, this complex mix has for years threatened to tear the society apart rather than glue it together. Hence, most of Sudanese history is shrouded with armed conflicts as a result of its ethnic, racial, cultural, and religious diversities, marginalisation, and ideological differences between Southern and Northern Sudan, and as a result of the often misguided policies towards the Southern Sudan during colonial and post colonial times. It is crucial to understand Southern Sudanese experiences in this historical context in order to grasp their resettlement experiences in Australia because avoiding these will obscure our understanding of why they are experiencing resettlement in Australia in the way they do. The Southern Sudanese have had only ten years of relative peace since 1955, the year the colonial master left. War had broken out between the Northern Sudanese and the Southern Sudanese in 1955 soon after the British had left, and ended in But in 1983 another war broke out again also between the Northern Sudanese and the Southern Sudanese and dragged on until February 2005 when an agreement known as the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was negotiated between the leadership of the rebels of the Sudanese People s Liberation Army/Movement under the leadership of Dr. John Garang de Mabior and the Islamist government in Khartoum (Sudan) under President Omer Al Bashier. The Peace agreement was negotiated under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority for Drought and Development (IGADD) in the city of Mashakos in Kenya. IGADD is a regional organisation 84

100 comprising Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia. Since its formation in 1986, it has become politically instrumental in dealing with issues of drought and desertification as well as regional trade, security and peace, by initiating political dialogue among warring parties in the region. This is exemplified by its efforts in the achievement of peace in Sudan. The war in Southern Sudan had uprooted many people from their homes to become displaced within and outside Sudan while others resettled in Australia and other western countries. The Plight and Flight of the Southern Sudanese: A Brief Historical and Contemporary Perspective Historically, Sudan was ruled by the Turks and Egyptians (Turko-Egyptian rule) from 1821 until This period marked the marginalisation, the plight and flight of the Southern Sudanese. Under the Turko-Egyptian rule in Sudan, Arabs (both the Northern Sudanese and Egyptian Arabs), Ottoman Turks, who were also ruling Egypt at that time, and Turkish traders with their private armies, penetrated into and plundered Southern Sudan for slaves and any valuables they could find (Idris 2001: 29). The rulers levied heavy taxes on the people of Southern Sudan, introduced forced labour, and searched for and took away ivory, livestock and any other valuables they could find. They broke down the socio-cultural, economic and natural fabric of the Southern Sudanese leaving them destitute and with enduring memories of the brutalities they suffered under the occupiers. Thus given those past relations, some Northern Sudanese Arabs still tend to refer to the Southern Sudanese as Ibd - an Arabic word meaning slaves - and do not dare to acknowledge the wrongs they have committed against the Southern Sudanese. Those past relations have created and left a deep sense of mistrust, grief and resentment of Arabs by Southern Sudanese, and have become the rock-bed upon which the Southern Sudanese have built their resistance and animosity against the Arab and Islamic Northern Sudanese. 85

101 The Mahdiyya (Mahdist) movement, which was regarded as both a political and Islamic religious popular movement in Sudan, drove out the Turko-Egyptian rulers from Sudan in 1885 and established an Islamic state which ended in The Southern Sudanese had supported the Mahdiyya against the Turko-Egyptians because the Mahdiyya had claimed to be the Messiah for all the Sudanese. But on coming to power, the Mahdiyya (Mahdist s rule) perceived the Southern Sudanese as infidels (non-muslims), inferior, and hence enslave-able (Johnson 2003 & Jok 2001). The Mahdists became the new Southern Sudanese oppressors. They actively engaged in endless slave raids on Southern Sudanese territories and took thousands of them to Northern Sudan as slaves (Idris 2002: 41). The Mahdiyya revived and institutionalised slavery which it had been against during Turko-Egyptian rule. Under the Mahdiyya, the Southern Sudanese were constantly hunted for their slave value because they were considered pagans (infidels). However even those who were islamised only became second class Muslims because they were blacks and not Arabs (Idris 2001: 42). The Mahdiyya ended in 1898 when Britain and Egypt jointly set up the Anglo-Egyptian rule know as the Condominium in Sudan. The Condominium created a native administration in Southern Sudan from the ruins of the Mahdiyya. Although Britain and Egypt were supposed to rule the Sudan jointly, Britain had more influence because of its imperial power. During the Condominium, the Southern Sudanese witnessed punitive military campaigns and exceptional violence to subdue their strong resistance to it (Suliman 1992). The Condominium instituted contradictory systems of administration in Sudan. The North was politically and economically promoted and the northern religious sects of Khatmiya and the Ansar (Mahdists followers) were groomed to become political forces/parties. The Khatmiya and the Ansar were Islamic religious sects in Northern Sudan. The Khatmiya was headed by Sayyid Ali Al-Mirghani and the 86

102 Ansar by Sayyid Abdel Rahman Al Mahdi. The two sects later transformed themselves into political parties and became the Democratic Unionist and Umm Parties and these became formidable political forces in Sudan after the British and the Egyptians had left. There was also educational development taking place in the north but Southern Sudan was left to languish under native administration of the tribal chiefs with no socioeconomic or educational advances or other social services. The Condominium administration curtailed Islamic influences in Southern Sudan in favour of Christian missionary activities. English was the lingua franca in Southern Sudan as opposed to Arabic in the North. Education in Southern Sudan was lagging and there were only a few elementary schools, two intermediate schools, one senior secondary school, one commercial school, and one primary teacher training centre in Southern Sudan during the Condominium (Deng 1995; Yongo-Bure 1993). According to Collins (1961: 62), the British had intended to federate Southern Sudan with Uganda and by then colonial governors from Southern Sudan attended administrative conferences in Uganda instead of in Khartoum. The British administration passed the Closed District and the Passport and Permit Ordinances between 1920 and 1922: this required the use of passports and permits for travelers from the north to Southern Sudan and vice versa. Under these Ordinances, no Northern Sudanese could go to Southern Sudan without a permit and the same was true for Southern Sudanese who wanted to travel to Northern Sudan. When the British were about to leave Sudan on the eve of Sudan s independence in 1955, the Arab Northern Sudanese and their Egyptian counterparts pressured the British on the future of the Southern Sudan and urged it to be joined to Northern Sudan. Due to the pressure, the British hastily organised the Juba Conference in It was stated that the conference was to discuss whether or not Southern Sudan should unite with the 87

103 North or be a separate country or join Uganda. However, the outcome of the conference seemed to have been already decided by the Northern Sudanese and the British civil secretary, and it was only held to inform the Southern Sudanese chiefs of their decision to join Southern Sudan with the north (Alier 1972: 16). The Southern Sudanese tribal chiefs, though not educated at the time, demanded a federation for Southern Sudan, but this was rejected by the British and the Northern Sudanese. Also the Southern Sudanese were not allowed to consult among themselves on this issue and most importantly there was no voting regarding unity or separation (Alier 1972: 17). Unity, according to Alier, was imposed on the Southern Sudanese. Aleir quotes from the minutes of the conference against the imposed unity, a plea from Chief Ladu Lolik, one of the Southern Sudanese chiefs: A girl who had been asked to marry a young man usually wanted time to hear reports of that young man from other people before consenting; likewise Southern Sudanese before coming to any fixed decision about their relations with the Northern Sudanese need time. The ancestors of the Northern Sudanese were not peace loving and not domesticated like cows. The younger generation said that they meant no harm, but time would show what they would do. (Aleir 1972:18) When the British left Sudan, almost all public positions both in the north and in the Southern Sudan were filled up by Arab Muslim Northerners in an arrangement known as Sudanisation. This left the Southern Sudanese dissatisfied (Alier 1972: 18-19) as they strongly felt they were being colonised by the Northern Sudanese (Beshir 1975). That feeling led to the first civil war in Sudan, which began when Southern Sudanese in the army mutinied in Torit town in Southern Sudan in 1955 (Beshir 1968). It was a demonstration of their strong feelings against unity with the north and what they saw as Islamisation and colonialisation by the Arab North. The mutineers became known as Anya-any1 rebels. The Anyanya1 rebel fighters were Southern Sudanese who were fighting for the separation of the Southern Sudan from the north. The word Anyanya 88

104 is a Ma di word literally meaning snake poison and implies that they reacted like snake poison against their adversaries, the Northern Sudanese. The civil war in Southern Sudan raged on for seventeen years ( ) sending many Southern Sudanese across the borders to Uganda, Central African Republic, Kenya, Ethiopia, and to former Zaire. Many more were internally displaced within the bushes and forests of Southern Sudan and others moved to the Southern Sudanese towns of Wau, Juba and Malakal held by the government army. Few others moved north as far as towns including Khartoum, the capital. The war ended with a negotiated peace settlement known as the Addis Abba Peace Agreement which gave the Southern Sudanese limited political and administrative powers while the central government in Khartoum retained most of the powers (Idris 2001: 105-6). The Addis Abba Peace Agreement was negotiated in the Ethiopian capital under the auspices of the World Council of Churches between Joseph Lagu, the leader of Anyanya1 rebel fighters and the then Sudanese government under President Nimeri in After the agreement, almost all the Southern Sudanese returned to their homeland and lived in relative peace for ten years only to be again displaced by another civil war in During the war most Southern Sudanese had no access to education, economic opportunities, healthcare and other essentials of life. In 1983, there was again another rebellion in Southern Sudan in the town of Bor and it marked the beginning of the second civil war between Southern Sudan and the Northern Sudanese Islamic government. The rebels became known as the Sudanese People s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) led by Dr. John Garang de Mabior. The reasons for that war was an accumulation of grievances including the contentious issue of Sudan s identity, equitable distribution of resources and power, imposition of the Islamic shari a law, Islamisation and Arabisation, the Jonglei canal project, the 89

105 discovery of oil in Southern Sudan and the annexation of oil rich areas in Southern Sudan by the north, the abrogation of the Addis Abba agreement, and the re-division of Southern Sudan into three regions. Studies by Lesch (1998: 17), International Crisis Group (2002: 5), Deng (1995), Johnson (2003), and Jok (2001) have articulated how diverse Sudan has been and estimated that the Northern Sudanese of Arab origin formed only 35% of the Sudanese population while 65% of the Sudanese population is of a very diverse African descent. Religiously, 70% of the Sudanese are Muslim (Sunis), between 5-10% are Christians, and the remainder are adherents of traditional beliefs. Given such diversity, I concur with An-Na im (1987:72) who asserted that any attempt to identify Sudan purely with Arabs and Islam or with Africans alone, misleads and negates the realities of Sudan s diverse nature. An-Na im suggested that instead, efforts should be directed to seek and to determine constructively shared traits and perspectives on various identities in their current forms in order to create a framework for a national identity that will accommodate the diverse Sudanese characteristics. Arguably discourses about Sudanese identities have soured the relations between Northern and Southern Sudanese, between Muslims and Christians and people of traditional faith as well as between Arabs and Africans. The Southern Sudanese reject the Arab and Islamic identities imposed on Sudan because it excluded them and made them second or third class citizens without equal rights. The North has marginalised and dominated the Southern Sudanese for decades (Jok 2001). Over the years the issue of Sudan s identity has emerged as the most contentious issue in the Southern and Northern Sudanese politics resulting in what Deng (1995, 1987 & 1998: 62-64) has called Sudan s crisis of identity. This has become ammunition in the war between Southern and Northern Sudan. 90

106 Amidst the suspicion between the Southern Sudanese and Northern Sudanese, the announcement of the construction (digging) of the Jonglei canal project by the central government in Khartoum triggered student riots in Juba in 1974 (see Howell, Lock and Cobb 1989: ). Due to the riots most Southern Sudanese became aware of the canal s negative effects once it was completed and the canal also became a recipe for the rebellion and the war against the North (Lako 1992: 45 & El Sammani, 1988: ). Serious socio-economic studies into the effects of construction of the canal were then carried out after the riots. The government had never asked the people of the area whether they wanted the canal or not because the local people graze their herds and carry out fishing and hunting around the Sudd area were the canal would be constructed to drain the water from the Sudd making the area dry. The Sudd is a thick swampy wetland (aquatic vegetation) area of 320Km long and 240Km wide in Southern Sudan. It is fed by water from the Bahr el Ghazal, Bahr el Jebel (White Nile), and the Bahr el Arab. It is estimated that about half of the water in the Sudd is lost to evaporation and absorption before traveling north the river Nile. The digging of the canal was to circumvent the Sudd and drain the swampland for agriculture. The Sudd is a home to many animal, fish, bird and game species. It is regarded as a giant filter and sponge that controls and normalises water quality and stabilises water flow. It is a major source of water for livestock, wildlife and domestic use, and an important source of fish for the Dinka, Shilluk and the Nuer who live around the areas According to Lako (1992: 25), studies carried out on the effects of the canal indicate that the ethnic groups comprising the Dinka, the Nuer, and the Shilluk living adjacent to the Sudd area will have no alternative to graze their herd, to fish and hunt or perform socio-economic and cultural activities associated with the Sudd once the canal is constructed and the Sudd vanishes. This caused those ethnic groups to strongly oppose 91

107 the construction of the canal. The construction of the canal also led to a rumour in Southern Sudan that Egypt and Northern Sudan had secretly planned to settle Egyptians along the canal areas once it is finished. The Southern Sudanese strongly opposed any Egyptian resettlement on their soil and were convinced that the Jonglei canal project was a neo-colonialist conspiracy of Northern Sudanese and Egyptians to grab their land and other resources (Lako 1992). It was argued that the canal would not benefit the Southern Sudanese, but Egypt and northern Sudan. It was believed that Egypt wanted more water for agriculture to feed its rapidly growing population. The Southern Sudanese were also suspicious that the government in the North had a hidden strategic reason for digging the canal. This arose from the fact that the Sudd had acted as a grass curtain and a barrier hindering quick military transport to move troops and equipment from Northern Sudan to Southern Sudan through the river Nile. Hence, once the canal is dug, the government could use it to swiftly move troops and military equipment to Southern Sudan to crush any rebellion in Southern Sudan against the government. Given these strong feelings against the canal, it was not coincidental that the rebels attacked the earth moving machines digging the canal rendering it un-useable and thus halting the work on the canal (refer to figure low). 92

108 Figure 6: The Sudd Source: Photos Courtesy of Sudan's Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, Dwight Peck, Ramsar: Accessed online at URL: on 19 July 2008 In May 1969 President Nimeri overthrew an elected government in Sudan and signed the Addis Ababa peace agreement in 1972 ending the war that began in After the signing of the accord, there was an uneasy period of peace in Southern Sudan for ten years. Within that time most Southern Sudanese had increasingly become scornful of the way in which President Nimeri, who had negotiated the peace agreement that granted them limited autonomy, was ruling the country. Nimeri angered the Southern Sudanese when he redrew the South-North borders and annexed the Bentiu area in Southern Sudan to the north because a large oil reserve was discovered in the area (Idris 2001: 121-2). That decision reignited and strengthened the long suspicion of the Southern Sudanese that the Arab north was determined to rob them of their resources. That added powerful ammunition which widened the rip between northern and southern hostilities, fuelling the war further (Dallalah 1988: ). 93